I've been sort of updating my 2024 reading list in the background. It's going to be a lot harder for me to recreate all the theatre (and concerts) I saw in 2024, but I can probably do it.
Unfortunately, work has not slowed down this week, though most of my co-workers did take off, leaving me to try to do a lot of error checking and rebuilding files that were not left in very good condition. I was not happy about that at all. Indeed, the receptionist and I were the only ones to come in to work today, though two of my team members were remote at least part of the day. But no point dwelling on that. I will try to do at least one fun thing tomorrow (aside from opening presents) and on Boxing Day. As it happens, my computer is dying, and one of the things I did was buy yet another external hard drive to back up everything, which I have done now. I might as well see if there are some Boxing Day sales on desktop machines. I really don't want to have to transfer over all my programs and tweak them. I remember that the "official" update of Kindle doesn't work for me, so I have to find on which version I finally landed on. Maybe I will get lucky and the new version of MailStore will work with Bell. Still, it's going to be a huge drag, and I am dreading it. In addition, my wife's laptop died overnight, so this morning we ran over to the mall to get a replacement at Staples, then I headed off to work.
At least I don't have to scurry around wrapping presents. I did all that Saturday evening, and then only had to get the last of the stocking stuffers ready and sign a few physical cards. Most people get e-cards, of course. Since we actually did put up the tree this year, unlike last year, I decided to show it off a little bit.
I have a fairly long list of former co-workers that get the cards, though I guess I have dropped a few people over the years. It is kind of sad that very few people reach out to me first. Anyway, most people got them in the first wave of cards that went out last Friday. Then another wave over the weekend, and a few Monday evening. I do blush to admit that the very last wave went out this evening.
I have convinced my son to go with me to see Tokyo Godfathers at Carlton tomorrow, as almost nothing else will be open. I don't think I'll end up making this an Xmas tradition, but I guess you never know. I think I mentioned already that I am taking him to an Almodovar film (Talk to Her) on Boxing Day, and then to see Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown on Friday.* (I wish I could remember where/when I saw Talk to Her, though the most likely case is I watched it on DVD.) I'm seeing All About My Mother on Sunday (after The Room Next Door!), and I even got an extra ticket to try to bring a friend, though unfortunately the seats are not together.
It's probably worth noting that Mirvish is running a Boxing Day sale on their main shows, including Come From Away, where if you buy one ticket you get the other one for $1 (though there are processing fees as well, of course). So I bought two tickets (together) for Come From Away in mid Jan. I plan on inviting someone from work, but I have a few other friends that might be interested if that doesn't work out.
I'm definitely starting to see a few more shows at the Revue, despite it being pretty inconvenient for me to get to, so I don't think I will get a membership there. I'm definitely going to see La Dolce Vita. And maybe Waking Life on Jan. 1 (when there is so little else that is open...). And very possibly Linklater's Before trilogy in Feb., though I need to find out if there are any discounts for seeing all three films in one go.
I'm also intrigued to see that HotDocs is doing a few more screenings of regular films, i.e. not documentaries. There is a small chance I'll go see Scott Pilgrim at HotDocs on Sat. and a very good chance I'll go see The Big Lebowski on New Year's Eve, most likely going from there to the Tranzac Club to ring in the New Year.
I'm almost certainly going to get through Kennedy's Ironweed and Osipov's Kilometer 101 by the end of the year. I did finish Munro's For Love of a Good Woman, though didn't like the stories all that much.** I've sort of put Mutis's Maqrol on the back burner. I kind of hoped the misadventures of a grifter in Panama and various parts of the West Indies would warm me up (when I am struggling a bit mentally facing up to winter), but it hasn't done so. It's not that I don't like it, but it doesn't demand to be read (and it's long). I will probably finish up Zaher's The Coin next and the second half of Munro's Runaway before I return to and wrap up Maqrol. After that, it will probably be Joy Williams's Taking Care and maybe something by Edna O'Brien and/or Craig Nova. I should probably just go back to this reading list, and maybe pick a couple more from there like one of Gide's novels or Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time. And before 2025 is over, I probably should try to get to Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, since I skipped over that to read Runaway.
I think between squeezing in a lot more movies than I have seen in years and some theatre here and there and then reading and essentially rebuilding my computer (and then working too much as always), I probably won't have too much time for anything else, but I guess we shall see.
Happy holidays...
* I don't want to dwell on it, but it turns out he really didn't enjoy Tafelmusik's Sing-Along Messiah because he wasn't really taught to read scores in choir and felt stressed out because he wasn't sure what (and when!) he was supposed to be singing. I was also pretty lost. I can read sheet music, though I am extremely rusty, but I was a bit more willing to go with the flow. I wish I had known he wouldn't have liked it, since I could have seen an Almodovar film instead. Qué mal...
** I also finished Lucia Berlin's A Manual for Cleaning Women and liked most of the stories, though some were very depressing. Interestingly, I had also just seen a movie, Mary Go Round, about an alcoholic addiction counsellor who moves back to Niagara Falls to help her estranged father with his struggle against cancer. The film overall seemed to pair well with Berlin's stories (and life). Interestingly, Almodovar was supposed to direct a film based on A Manual for Cleaning Women, and it is a bit hard to know how that would have gone, though I suppose there likely would have focused on her reconnecting with her sister who was dying of cancer in Mexico, but it is really hard to say. At least according to IMDB, Almodovar actually wrote a screenplay with Berlin but then withdrew from the project. I wonder if he might return to it one day.
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