I'll just pull together my reading and exercise updates, as I just never have time to update on a regular basis. In fact, I recall thinking I would hit 13 reviews at a record pace this cycle, but that obviously hasn't happened, though I believe I have read at least 13 qualifying books (but I decided to skip reviewing at least two of them).
I've been doing a pretty good job of getting to the gym 3 times/week, since they reopened them in late Jan. To me this is particularly impressive, as I don't like going on days I have to trudge there through the snow and change out of my books. The last few times it's been cold but the sidewalks are at least clear. Tuesday was the first day that the vaccine passport requirements were lifted. I believe a fair number of theatre and concert venues are keeping the passport in place at least through April, but the gyms (and I think the movie theatres) have dropped this pretty quickly. That isn't a great feeling, as I could be exercising next to an anti-vaxxer, and it's bad enough that I have seen more than a few on the TTC. If I had my way, I would prefer that they just drop the mask requirement (as there are so many loopholes associated with exercising anyway) but keep the vaccine passport. At least the vast majority of people that were there are regulars that I've seen over the past month, so they were vaccinated. As much as the (Conservative) political leadership hated them, I think the vaccine passports to the gym and movie theatre did motivate a lot of 20 year olds to get their shots that probably just wouldn't have otherwise. It did feel a bit more crowded than I was completely comfortable with, but it wasn't terrible. I've been out and about a lot more than many people and have a higher risk tolerance than many people my age.
A couple of times I've actually doubled up, going on Saturday morning and then a shorter session (mostly cardio) on Sunday, at least in part because it allows me a bit more reading time. I suppose I don't think that much about it, but I was lucky; whatever nerve damage I had after my bike accident has gone, and I am able to lift weights pretty comfortably, though I'm no Charles Atlas for sure...
For quite a while, it was impossible for me to find two evenings a week to go swimming because the time slots were pretty limited and/or other people had booked before me. This week, however, I was able to swim laps on Monday and Wednesday. I don't know for certain I'll be able to maintain 3 trips to the gym and 2 lap swimming sessions a week, especially as theatre and concerts open up again, but I'll try. I may be a little less obsessed by this once I start biking more regularly, which is looking like mid-March at this rate. Anyway, I got up to 20 laps (crawl) and 1 sidestroke lap. Wed. I had a slightly late start. I was planning on settling for 16 laps but managed to squeeze 18 in. So that was pretty good. I have a rest night planned for tonight; not coincidentally this is also the night I am watching one of Factory Theatre's virtual pieces. I think this might be the last virtual theatre piece (especially as SFYS is completely dormant at the moment, which is really sad), as companies pivot back to live performance. While a bit apprehensive, I've been looking forward to this moment for months, and my next post will outline some of what I expect to check out.
I'll just wrap up with what I've been reading. I somehow messed up and thought I had one more week on my small stack of Sam Selvon books before they were due.* In the end, I managed to reread Lamming's In the Castle of My Skin, which I thought was quite good and still stands up, and Selvon's An Island is a World, which is a largely about village life but focuses on young adults who in fact leave the island and then return. I returned the other books unread. I should be able to wrap up Selvon's The Housing Lark (on my phone!), and after I get through Dostoevsky and some other major novels, I'll probably request Moses Migrating (the last book in Selvon's Moses Trilogy) and Lamming's The Emigrants. That will probably be more than enough "immigration literature" for 2022.
After these books, I read some shorter novels (and of course poetry) and actually two non-fiction books: Megacity Saga and Smart Cities in Canada: Digital Dreams, Corporate Designs. Then I read Karasik's Faithful and Other Stories. The "other stories" were ok, not great. Faithful is actually a novella and overstays its welcome. I actually bailed about a quarter of the way in, which is still somewhat rare for me. I think this one I will review, but it isn't a high priority. I didn't care for Rob McLennan's Missing Persons, and that one I won't review. Then I started in on some books from the New Directions Pearls series. Two Crocodiles (a story by Dostoevsky and one by Felisberto Hernández) was pretty good, though I really didn't like Bad Nature by Javier Marias and I stopped halfway into it. Paul Auster's The Red Notebook was ok, though some of the coincidences he recounts weren't all that spectacular. So far Cesar Aira's The Literary Conference is just dopey, and I have grave doubts about actually making it all the way through. I'm glad these are short, but the batting average is way below that of NYRB for instance. I'm still fairly likely to tackle Bolaño's Antwerp and García Lorca's In Search of Duende. And then after a veritable smorgasbord of tapas-like books, I will tackle Crime and Punishment, followed by The Man Who was Thursday and finishing with Arlt's The Seven Madmen. I'm guessing this will take me until May, but it's a bit hard to tell. There are a few directions I might go after that, including back to my original reading list...
* And they were due at Robarts where I can't renew them. Sigh. This is actually the first time in months that I don't have anything at all out from Robarts. I've finally gotten through my list of books that were only available there, though there is a small stack that I can only look at at the Rare Book Library, which is still pretty restricted. On a positive note, it looks like the Toronto Reference Library is finally becoming usable again after close to 6 weeks where they closed off most of the stacks and then made it impossible to do book retrieval!
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