Wednesday, February 28, 2018

11th Canadian Challenge - 15th review - The Amazing Absorbing Boy

A while back, I had thought I would write a post about the literature of immigration.  That's still a good idea, but probably more work than I really want to take on, particularly now that I have finally started getting more serious about my own creative writing.  If I ever do tackle it, then Rabindranath Maharaj's The Amazing Absorbing Boy will definitely need to be mentioned.  It is a good, though not great, novel about a young immigrant coming to Toronto from Trinidad.  I'd say it did exceed my expectations a bit, since it was better than Maharaj's earlier novel Homer in Flight. That said, Maharaj still doesn't really have a solid handle on plotting or pacing novels, and his novels sort of peter out rather than conclude with a satisfactory ending.


In terms of some basic comparisons between the two, Samuel, the protagonist of The Amazing Absorbing Boy, is much younger than Homer when he first sets foot in Canada.  He doesn't actually apply for any sort of landed immigrant papers.  However, his father is in Canada, apparently legally.  Samuel first just overstays his tourist visa, but then his situation is finally straightened out, after his uncle comes up to Canada to see how things are going and forces Samuel's father to begin the process to sponsor Samuel legally.

To say that the relationship between Samuel and his father is not healthy is an understatement.  His father clearly doesn't want anything to do with him and only takes him in, unwillingly, after Samuel's mother dies.  Samuel's father does nothing to try to show Samuel around the city and show him the ropes (quite a contrast from Homer who had a fair bit of good advice from his relatives).  He lets Samuel fend for himself and is negative and sarcastic when Samuel somewhat amazingly finds work as a gas station attendant (being paid under the counter naturally).

While Samuel longs for his father's approval or even just basic recognition from him, he ends up being fairly resourceful. After a few missteps, he learns how to use the transit system.  Indeed, he starts exploring the city on his days off, particularly before he starts taking classes at a community college of some sort.  He appears to be working towards the equivalent of a GED, so that he can enroll in university.  All of this hinges upon his getting permanent residency of course, as he certainly cannot afford out-of-state tuition, even with his uncle helping out.  Samuel even learns about the GO trains and GO buses.  When his uncle visits, he takes him on a trip from Oshawa to Burlington, which is certainly further than most tourists would ever think to go.

SPOILERS

There are a few quirky things about the novel.  Basically, two years pass in the novel, but Maharaj mostly only talks about the weather when it is winter, which I suppose is something that would really stand out to Samuel.  Also, Samuel encounters a large number of people that he interacts with for a while, and then they drift apart for one reason or another: a language school was a sham and the students have gotten in trouble, Samuel stops going to a particular coffee shop (or even this poetry reading series!), Samuel stops working at a store and so forth.  It's a little unsatisfying to have so many dropped threads.  In particular, I was wondering whether there would be any resolution to the near-dating that Samuel and Carmen (the sister of one of his classmates) engage in.  Instead, the novel shifts back in time to focus on Samuel's growing friendship with a boy in his hometown.  This boy, Loykie, had a terrible skin condition and more or less lived in a swamp with his mother.  Many of the townspeople had never even seen him; he was almost a myth.  Samuel and Loykie bonded over their love of comic book heroes, and together they dreamed up a new hero, The Amazing Absorbing Boy, who takes on the properties of everything he touches (basically like Rogue from the X-Men, but this applies even to inanimate objects like wood or water).  It's a fairly obvious metaphor that new immigrants, such as Samuel, rapidly absorb everything around them, and it isn't too long before they change to better fit their environment.  Indeed, eventually they blend in and can even show others around, as Samuel does with his uncle.  The novel ends with Samuel undergoing an exam to gain his permanent residency, which may indeed be no easy matter to gain, since his father has actually finally thrown in the towel on Canada and has returned to Trinidad.  I suppose until his future is settled, Samuel can't get too serious about Carmen.

Samuel definitely had some new takes on Toronto.  He lived in Regent Park, and the gentrification of the area and displacement of existing residents was a running thread through the second part of the novel.  But Samuel was fascinated by the way different cultures lived together.  He arrived at a time when Toronto truly had become more of a mosaic (compared to Homer who was arriving in a substantially whiter city).  Winters aside, he was pretty enthusiastic about the city and wanted to stay, even after his father left.  (It's a bit of a cliche, but Toronto was probably the second most important character in the book after Samuel.)  He clearly felt fairly confident that he could succeed where Canada had beaten his father, and indeed he seems to have more drive and was more open to new experiences and frankly was nicer to other people, all of which would generally contribute to his success.


Update to the Update

I think I mentioned that I decided not to bother with Open Open Open now that Sing-for-your-Supper was back up and running.  So I decided I would focus on trying to get a piece written for that, but the deadline was the 27th.  Work has been really heavy these past couple of weeks, and I more or less worked through the night yesterday.  On top of that, I was working pretty furiously on the Final Exam.  Mostly the script but also all the pieces that I need to pull together to get it produced, and that is still uppermost in my mind.  I have made some progress on that, making headway on getting another actor involved.  I also went to a Production 101 session hosted by the Fringe last night, which kind of points out just how much I still have to do, though I was pretty much in the middle of the pack, which was somewhat comforting.  I didn't really recognize anyone in the room, as most of the artists I know didn't make it into the lottery.  My situation is definitely different from the others though, as mine is a site-specific piece, so my questions are more specific and I'll just email them to the Fringe.

To sort of add to my mental confusion (of last night), I can definitely see the start and middle of the piece, but I just couldn't settle on the ending.  Do I want a funny or ironic or tragic end to this piece?  I think the answer would be just to sit down and write it and see what develops, but I didn't have time.  Perhaps if I had the ending (or some ending) in mind, I could have forced myself to get moving, but I bailed.  I'll just aim for next month, and hope that the parody piece I submitted way back in Dec. gets taken (I resubmitted it, since they have been on hiatus and probably misplaced everything from before).

What I just barely managed to do is to turn my short play Double Sabbatical into a short story for the Toronto Star contest.  I know it won't win, as it is far too dialogue-heavy, but I just wanted to feel I had accomplished something out of all those deadlines I had.  The deadline is today in fact, and I'll have to drop it off in person on the way to work.  A couple of years ago, I managed to drop it off after work on the day before the contest ended.  So cutting it close is nothing new to me.  Like many people, particularly academics, I pretty much work to deadlines and not much else.

Today, I have a bunch of library books to deal with, and I'd like to finish up two book reviews for the blog, but I suppose if they don't get posted it's not the end of the world.  After all this, I probably need to do nothing but focus on Final Exam, which is basically uppermost in my mind (aside from work periodically...).

Monday, February 26, 2018

Theatre Updates

So much theatre, and so little time to write about it.  Working backwards from this weekend, No Foreigners was quite interesting, though it was basically a high-tech puppet show.  It was mostly about a Chinese-Canadian who gets turned away at a Chinese mall and wants to prove he isn't a foreigner, even though he doesn't speak any Chinese dialect.  He eventually meets up with a sifu, studies Chinese through pirated Chinese DVDs, eats nothing but Chinese food at the food court.  After three years, he is Chinese enough to tackle karaoke (and some ninjas).  There is another thread about a man talking to the ghost of his grandfather at the mall.  That one was a little less satisfying.  The audience was probably 60% Asian, and they really got into it, which kept the energy in the room pretty high.  I overheard two young women talking about being involved with the theatre, and I almost gave them a business card, but felt somewhat cowed by their mother.  I suppose it is pretty unlikely I will put on Corporate Codes of Conduct anytime soon, and as for the one that was into technology, I try to put on plays as simply as possible, i.e. with no projections.  However, I did drop a line to the actor in the show itself, as she might be able to play a teenager in Final Exam, if she isn't too busy during Fringe (and will work for Fringe rates!).

Jerusalem.  In some ways, this is a deeply, deeply cynical play.  Everyone in the village is basically a closet drug user, which is why Rooster Byron is so outraged that they are trying to turf him now, ostensibly because he is selling drugs and booze to teenagers (when he remembers selling it to their parents).  Rooster is such a low-life, but when played by someone with real charisma, he's pretty compelling.  I'm glad I went to see it, despite the three hour running time.  If nothing else, the set is amazing.  That said, there are some parts of the play I don't care for, particularly when he tells his son that his blood is so valuable.  I'm sorry, but even if he had the most valuable blood in the world, it would be completely unusable, given all the drugs and booze he pours into his system.  (Plasma is a bit more forgiving and can be stripped of impurities, which is why winos used to give so much of it, but blood is not.)  Also, there is this time when he appeared in court for locking someone in a shed for a week, nearly killing them.  I know that the UK courts (and Canadian ones) are far too lenient for crimes against property, but an attack on an official that didn't actually land Rooster in jail?  It seems unlikely.  Still, a unique experience.  It has been extended through March 17 if interested.

I'll have to circle back to write more about The Humans.  So much going on in that one.  I believe it has closed, so you'll just have to travel to see it if you didn't catch it here.

I actually don't have a lot planned right now for this weekend.  There is a chance I'll go see Fierce by George F. Walker at Red Sandcastle, though I have to say the reviews I have read make it seem even less plausible than The Catch!  I'm just not sure I can deal with that right now.  On the other hand, Walker really knows how to ramp up the tension between characters, and I could use a bit more of that for the last section of Final Exam.  Hmmm.  But I also promised my son to take him to Black Panther, and I may go catch Brown Girl in the Ring (or not).

I do have a Fringe meeting this Tues., so that's kind of exciting.  In other news, I believe the script changes have convinced one actor to come on board, though he hasn't signed or anything.  I am still waiting to hear back from one other actor, who would play the second teacher.  I have two of the students lined up, and I just reached out to a potential third one.  I will be going to SFYS next Monday, and I may be able to find actors or even a director, so I really have to make it.  I decided that since SFYS is back up and running, I would skip Open Open Open, and just write my K-Pop piece for SFYS.  However, I have to hop to it, as I only have another day to finish that!  So tonight, no more fooling around. With that, I'm off.

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Thumbs Down for Soulpepper

It is unfortunate I have to write this post, but it is always instructive to see how organizations do during a crisis and frankly Soulpepper isn't inspiring me.  To give a bit of background, Soulpepper was supposed to have Ayckbourn's A Chorus of Disapproval this spring.  They say it was a return engagement, though I don't know how long ago it went up (probably before 2014).  In any case, they have decided to scrap this performance and replace it with La Bête by David Hirson.  I can't really tell if this is because a couple of actors are still boycotting Soulpepper or because Albert Schultz directed the original run and they don't want to validate anything he touched in the past.

However, I am not interested in La Bête.  Really, I was only strongly interested in Albee's A Fine Balance and A Chorus of Disapproval this season.  I had to really stretch to find four shows I wanted to see.  Had I known they were going to make the switch, I would not have subscribed in the first place.  What was particularly surprising is that all tickets for A Chorus of Disapproval have been rebooked for La Bête (as if theatre was an interchangeable commodity, and who would care what particular play they were seeing?). Anyway, there is a note that they are happy to accommodate subscribers, but what they don't say is that when you call the Box Office will only allow you to change to a different show.  They will not refund the ticket price for A Chorus of Disapproval.  I said I wasn't interested in any other show, and I wanted a refund.  They said a manager would get back in touch, but no one has to date.

I understand times are tight, and they just lost a big government grant, but this is no way to behave.  There is a very ugly term for switching a product without consent and then refusing to provide refunds: consumer fraud.  I can confidently state that I am so annoyed by these actions that it will be at least two to three seasons before I even consider subscribing again, if I even do at all, especially if they scrub Ayckbourne from their short list of playwrights that they program.  I am probably done with Soulpepper after this, aside from maybe a rush ticket here and there.  The real question will be how many others feel the same way.

Things Coming Together

I'm cautiously optimistic that I will make all my deadlines over the next two weeks.  First, I probably should back up a bit.  This past weekend was relatively (and deceptively) light.  I saw Karam's The Humans at Canadian Stage on Sunday and took my son to the AGO on Monday (it was the Family Day holiday in Ontario).  What I didn't realize, since I didn't put it on my calendar, was that I was supposed to see an updated version of Candide at George Brown.  I can't believe I missed an event (that I had actually paid for).  There are a couple of plays that I got too sick to and one or two where I realized at the very last minute I was supposed to go (but was able to switch tickets to a later performance).  This may be the first time I've just let an event slip my mind entirely, and it is embarassing.  Having said that, I was only moderately interested in this one, and I only bought the ticket as part of a subscription.  (And indeed I stopped writing to go add the April performances to the calendar! Those are the plays I really want to see.)

I was making slow but steady progress on the Final Exam script, but still felt a bit blocked.  I had reached the point where I was elevating the debate about whether the children wanted to undergo the Process.  I think the actors are a bit frustrated at how the general mass of characters are so accepting of their fate, but I kind of wanted to show how most people just go along with whatever government is in charge.  Also, I am making some sly (perhaps too sly) comments about the loss of privacy and how it will just not be seen as a big deal to have your entire mind open to others in the future.  Anyway, there are two stronger voices against the Process, and I even have one of them attempt to escape, whereas the other resister undergoes the Process after all and is essentially a convert.  It probably was the ending that was really baffling me, and I don't think there is any easy way out of the situation I have set up.

At any rate, even though I felt I was running a bit behind (having promised rewrites to the actors over the weekend) I ended up going to see the TorQ concert at the Tranzac Club in Toronto.  They certainly had a lot of equipment for their concert!


The nice thing about this space was that there were quite a few tables, and I got one with a good view, but that also allowed me to write material in my notebook.  I was writing furiously throughout the show (with the people at the next table assuming I was a critic...).  I managed to get 6 or so pages done, essentially all the remaining material up until the alien showed up.

I took a bit of a half-nap when I got home, but then woke up, typed in the new material and reframed the ending a bit.  So the next draft got finished and was sent out, and at least some of the credit should go to TorQ.

It turns out that Sing-for-your-Supper is restarting in March.  I will resubmit a piece that I wrote for them back in Dec.  Then I will try to get a short piece (about the breakup of a K-Pop band!) done in time.  I will probably write it first as a monologue for Open-Open-Open (which is due on the 24th) and then as a more conventional piece with 3 parts for SFYS (due on the 27th).  The last thing I need to do is turn one of my short plays into a short story for the Toronto Star story competition.  That shouldn't take too much time, but it is due on the 28th.  Did I mention that I am seeing Butterworth's Jerusalem this weekend.  It clocks in at 3 hours!  So it looks like one more sustained push, but I think I can make these various deadlines.

And by the way, I did make that banana bread I had hoped to bake on Family Day.  It seems to have come out pretty well.


Ciao for now.

Monday, February 19, 2018

Family Day 2018

It ended up being a nicer day than I expected.  It did sprinkle on and off, but we didn't get caught in any showers.  I was taking my son to the AGO to see the Mitchell/Riopelle exhibit, which opened on Sunday.  It wasn't until just a couple of days I realized this was about the abstract expressionist Joan Mitchell, and my interest in the show sky-rocketed (it had been fairly high already).  In a weird irony, the AGO was simply packed with families with young children (still, I am sure the ROM and the Science Centre were even worse), but they almost never left the main floor.  Thus, the Mitchell/Riopelle exhibit was almost empty (I assume it was fairly crowded on Sunday).

It's quite an impressive exhibit, and I'll just put up a few of the pictures I took.  In general, I was more drawn to the Mitchell paintings, but there were quite a number of Riopelle's that I liked.

Joan Mitchell, Untitled, 1955

Joan Mitchell, Untitled, 1961

This painting by Riopelle was my son's favourite.

Riopelle, Saint-Anthon, 1954

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I liked this one (No, no, no, no, no), but I'll have to go back and take some close-ups, as you can't really get a sense of the texture, which was quite interesting.

Riopelle, Non, non, non, non, non, 1961
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Here is a much "sunnier" Mitchell than one typically sees.

Mitchell, Untitled, 1969

In the later rooms the paintings got quite enormous, and I am working on piecing together an image of one of the largest paintings.

Joan Mitchell, Canada I, 1975

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Riopelle, Large Triptych, 1964
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I'll definitely go back a few more times.  I haven't decided on the catalog, but it is a bit pricier than I want to pay ($55).

We avoided the parts of the museum overrun with strollers, but still managed to see quite a bit of the main collection.  I was pleased to see that the Tissot is back on the walls, though a few of the Dufy's I liked are gone into storage.  (Maybe my campaign worked.)

James Tissot, The Shop Girl, 1884

There was actually a Caillebotte on view as well, which certainly surprised me.  As it turns out it is on loan from a private collection.  Perhaps someday it will be donated to the AGO.  While it isn't a masterpiece, it is certainly worth a closer look on my next visit.

They have also set aside another room for 20th Century art, and while I like some of what is there, I wish they would just go ahead and put the Rothko back up, as it is kind of a shocking thing to keep in one's basement, so to speak.

After leaving the AGO, we walked down to Queen.  I couldn't believe the size of this excavation, which makes it look like this church is going to fall right down into the pit (and OCAD may lose its view).



We then went to an Indian buffet on Queen, which was a first for him, but he enjoyed it on the whole.  We then strolled over to Scotiabank Theatre (trying to work off some of the meal).  It turned out that Black Panther was pretty much sold out for the rest of the afternoon.  I have to admit, I wasn't really that keen on going, but he wanted to see it, and I thought he deserved a reward for a great report card (just as I'll take my daughter to the Science Centre next week).  He was a bit disappointed, but I said we'd go in a few more weeks when it wasn't quite so hectic and we wouldn't end up smooshed next to other people.

We got back home much earlier than I expected obviously.  I did take a short nap and then read a bit (finally finishing up Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale).  I probably should have played some board games with the kids or made the banana bread like I had promised, but otherwise it was a decent Family Day.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Routines

I am finding it slightly easier to stick to my routines, a few minutes of exercise in the morning, skipping sugary snacks at work (trying to just stick to fruit, rice cakes and gum) and then going to the gym.  Currently, I'm making it to the gym is 2-3 days a week.  I assume when it gets nicer, I'll be back around 3-4 days.  I'm starting to know some of the regulars.  I still don't see great progress, but I am definitely in better shape than I was a few months back.  It does help that I haven't been sick in a while.  I don't really like going, but once I am there it isn't too bad, and I feel I am on track.

It can be frustrating though (being virtuous).  I generally feel like I've given up so much: meat and alcohol (though so long ago that it isn't painful), diet soda (and basically caffeine in general) and now sugar at work.  (I never started on coffee or cigarettes or really alcohol, so I never had to give that up.)  But I often am a bit cranky from lack of sleep (and it probably is the irregular sleep patterns that caused much of the weight gain in the first place), and this giving up the sugar isn't helping my mood.*  Of course, the sad thing is that people who succeed on their diets are those that ask themselves about every treat, is it worth eating this.  I don't really want to be that kind of person (and for the rest of my life!), but I think it is the only way to stop being fat.  It finally bothers me enough that I am training my will power on it.

At this point, the main hurdle I can see coming up is when I start biking to work again (maybe late March) and I'll be feeling like I deserve a treat for all the extra exercise.  If I can battle through that and just satisfy myself with fruit (and gum), then I think I'll start seeing the results soon enough.  Maybe one of these days I'll start jogging again, but I probably ought to lose a bit more weight first, just to spare my ankles. 


* I actually won a free donut in the Roll Up the Rim contest at Tim Hortons, and I am giving it to my son.  That kind of signaled to me that I am finally, finally serious about eating better.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Happy Year of the Dog!

It's the Chinese New Year, and this year is the Year of the Dog.
 

The Year of the Dog is actually my year, which is a bit ironic, as I really don't like dogs much at all.  Mostly I don't like dog owners, particularly those who feel that their pets should be treated like children and brought into all kinds of stores and restaurants.  But I don't really like the dogs themselves either.

Growing up we went to Chinese restaurants a lot, so studied the Chinese zodiac on the placemats.  I remember that I thought it would be funny if my brother was Year of the Pig, though he is actually Year of the Rat (not much better, though rats are certainly more respected in China than they are in the States).

I'm kind of hoping that this is a good year for me.  After all, I have a play in the Fringe (and I'm closing in on the last of the edits).  And it seems I am making some progress on pushing forward an interesting project at work.  However, the day itself was not particularly auspicious.  On the way home, I was dealing with too many things like a wayward garbage can, and I dropped my copy of The Old Wives' Tale in the snow.  I'm still pissed about that, though the truth is that, while I am enjoying it quite a bit, I am not particularly likely to reread it.  Thus, I can part with this copy and just download a version from Project Gutenberg.

Then it turned out that my daughter's laptop wouldn't charge.  It took a lot of fiddling around with it (and switching chargers), but it ended up charging after all.  So it won't have to be replaced for a while, though my son's laptop does seem to be on its last legs.  (For that matter, the main desktop computer I use seems completely out of memory all the time, and I probably will have replace it, since it certainly isn't cost effective to try to upgrade it.)

Then someone had unplugged my wall charger, and the laptop completely ran down while I was off doing something else.  This is always annoying, since it usually means having to restore a whole bunch of files when you reopen them.  However, I didn't lose any work due to it shutting down.

Finally, I had really planned on running off to the gym, but I simply ate too much, and it took too long to digest, so I gave that up.  I'll probably go tomorrow.  On the whole, not a great evening, given that my routines were all thrown off, but I suppose it could have been worse.

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Quick progress report - Feb.

It feels like I should say early Feb., but only another few days and we'll be hitting the midway mark!  Anyway, it has been a snowy and somewhat cold Feb. so far.  It does look like it will hover around freezing this next week or so, but there is still quite a bit of snow in the forecast.  I'm getting a bit tired of all the shoveling!

I did manage to get to the gym a couple of times this week, even going through the snow and slush.  I might upgrade my performance to C+, and if I go tomorrow for a short visit on the way back from Richard III, then it will go to B-.  I'm kind of hovering around B/B- for the exercising at home.  But the main improvement is at work where I skipped the weekly snack break (called a "fika") on Thurs. and then on Friday I passed up Timbits and some fancy Italian pastry!  So that's an A- for the week.  I guess I finally got tired enough of being fat to make that last change of giving up the bad eating habits (at work at least).  Again, I'm trying not to expect too much visible progress until the late spring/summer, but it feels like I am on the right track.  Most importantly, I think I have a sustainable approach.  I've always hated those shows like The Biggest Loser, since they put these people on diets that are simply too strict to be maintained after the cameras are off and put them in the gym 6 or 7 days a week (as if normal people can keep to that regime).  It's hardly a secret that almost all the contestants end up putting the weight back on again, even if they are at least more active than they used to be.

I closed out the week feeling particularly productive.  We wrapped up a memo on freight planning that had been languishing a bit.  Of more interest to me, I completed and submitted a plan of future work that would last at least 3 years, so I'm waiting to see how that goes over.

While I have two plays to see this weekend (Richard III and Bang Bang by Kat Sandler), my main goal is to finish the rewrites to the script.  I only managed to get a few hours on it over the week, but now that I don't feel I have as much work work hanging over me, I think I'll have the required mental energy.  Fingers crossed.

Today I will launch into Arnold Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale.  In a way I am glad to finally have gotten to this one off my reading list.  This was a book I was assigned literally decades ago in undergrad; I had too many reading courses that semester, so I just skipped it (and sort of bulled my way through the discussion of the book that week).  So it is a way of getting around to some unfinished business,* though at least for the time being I will just be reading on the train/streetcar or while at the gym.  After I get my script edits done, I can focus on reading the book in earnest.  That's it for now.

* I'm sure I would have found the novel worthy back then, but it really is about the progression of time (and one only escapes from growing old by dying young), and I suspect I will take it to heart more now that I have to fight off the effects of growing old (see above: diet and going to gym...).  In any event, this was a book that had gone out of print back then.  The professor actually debated substituting another book, but we managed to find enough used copies to go forward.  However, one must remember this was pre-Web and Bookfinder.com wasn't even an idea (even email was just in its infancy and mostly only used by researchers and university students).  My mother was living in Ferndale, just north of Detroit, and was able to pick up 3 or 4 copies of the book from local used book stores (after we had exhausted the Ann Arbor shops), which was quite a help for us.  So the guilt I have always felt about not reading the book goes just a bit deeper than letting down the professor; I felt that I turned down an offering from my mother.  I suppose the most surprising thing is that I didn't find the time to get to this novel much sooner, say when I was teaching in Newark and read well over 150 books.  But I have reached it now and look forward to crossing it off the list -- and essentially paying off that minor debt to my mother.

Thursday, February 8, 2018

Cats cats cats

Cats have been on my mind for a while, perhaps because I am longing to have one again, even though it probably doesn't really fit my lifestyle.  I certainly haven't cleaned up enough of the study and the basement to the point where I could put down litter boxes, for example.  Nonetheless, I am still thinking about it.

When something is on your mind like that, then you pick up signals everywhere, mostly because you are attuned to the thing you are thinking about.  So, for instance, while I was at Robarts, I ran across a large number of Japanese books with "cat" in the title, and in general cats seem to be held in high esteem in Asia.  While it is a gross overstatement, I do wonder if Japan and China having more of an agricultural background (where cats are valued for getting rid of mice and other rodents) and not much of a hunting tradition among the landed elites (who valued dogs for hunting) swings the balance towards cats.  Though apparently the legend goes that the cat (and the snake) did not cry when Buddha died, so Buddhists are apparently not overly fond of cats.  Here are some other legends about cats.

At any rate, here is a listing of cat tales that I came across in Robarts.  I don't know that I will read them all, but perhaps I shall.  I currently have The Guest Cat checked out.


And I definitely must read I Am a Cat one of these days, as I've owned it for many years.


R Sakutarō Hagiwara Cat Town (NYRB Poets) Mostly poetry and "Cat Town," a short tale (or long prose poem) which Murakami* riffed on in 1Q84
R Takashi Hiraide The Guest Cat (New Directions)
Naoyuki II The Shadow of a Blue Cat (Dalkey Archive Press)
She Lao City of Cats (this is probably the same as Cat Country, also in Robarts)
Tomoyuki Hoshino We, the Children of Cats
O Sōseki Natsume I Am a Cat
Huang Chun-ming The drowning of an old cat and other stories

* Speaking of Murakami, Blind Willow, Speaking Woman and Men Without Women both have stories featuring cats.

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

John Mahoney

I'm trying not to make this a blog just of people who passed away, but I have a very small connection with him, having seen him in a couple of performances at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.  Most of the obituaries focus on the TV show Frazier, and a few mention his performance as William Faulkner in Barton Fink (which I should watch again one day soon), but only the Chicago-based obits talk much about Steppenwolf Theatre, even though doing live theatre was his main calling, he felt.  After Frazier made him rich enough to do whatever he wanted, he mostly retired from Hollywood and just acted with Steppenwolf.  Here is one that covers a breadth of his career.

I saw Mahoney in Conor McPherson's The Seafarer in 2009 and in Harwood's The Dresser in 2005.  The Dresser was particularly notable as it also had Mike Nussbaum (a real fixture of Chicago stage) and Tracy Letts (the actor/playwright).  I was supposed to see Mahoney in Enda Walsh's Penelope, though Mahoney had to pull out for family reasons and he was replaced by Letts.  Letts did a fine job, though of course I would really have loved to see Mahoney in the role.

In many ways, Mahoney is a prime example for those of us who come to something they love late.  He didn't start acting until he was 37, but made quite a career of it.  I have no intention of taking up acting, but, in a sense, I do aspire to be a more creative person and do more with my writing, i.e. have it produced or get it published, now that I have reached my middle age.

Progress - early Feb.

I have definitely been remiss in not writing down any number of things that belong on the blog, but I have been busy, and it just hasn't been my highest priority.

It's still quite cold out and generally a bit unpleasant.  It might not be so bad if we didn't need boots, but there is just enough ice on the sidewalks (particularly in residential areas) that we just can't get away with regular shoes.  It looks like the weekend might warm up just a bit, though I don't think the snow and ice will melt.

I didn't really want to go, but I did manage to make it to the gym today.  I basically only forced myself since I had promised to go pick up another bag of road salt as we were running low.  Under any circumstances carrying the 10 kg bag would have been a challenge, but after a relatively heavy workout, it was murder on my arms.  I don't want to get too hung up on numbers or progress, but I had thought I had noticed a bit of an improvement (probably more to finally getting serious about eating better at work than anything else), and it does look like I have lost 5 pounds, though I have a long way to go still.  Nonetheless, if I can maintain and even lose a bit of weight, even in the dead of winter when I am hesitant to go to the gym, then things should be looking up in the spring.

I did a bit more on the quilt, though I ran into a bit of a snag where one strip is too short, so I'll need to try to fix that.

Finally, I put in another hour on editing the script for the Fringe.  I clearly need to focus on that more, but it is a bit too late to get to it tonight.  At this point I need the sleep more, so let's it for now.