Follow-Up on Art

It's looking less and less likely that I will run over to the gym for a cardio session.  I need to get over to Jimmie Simpson around 12:30 and the weather is pretty miserable (cold rain), so I will be trying to figure out how to do this all by TTC.  Probably head down to Queen, and then after swimming just take the Queen streetcar downtown.  I'm hoping there is enough time to drop in at work and pick up more printing (only a few pages printed after all), then go up to St. Mike's and drop off DVDs, see the concert, go to Robarts and drop off the rest of the DVDs and do a bit of research, then maybe see about selling some stuff to BMV (though this will only happen if I do manage to make it to work), and then perhaps see Project Hail Mary.

I did decide not to bother with the TO Bach Festival pass.  While there is some modest price savings, that is only if you go to all 4 concerts.  I am definitely skipping one and probably a second one of motets.  But I would like to finish booking everything else today.  I am very tempted to buy tickets to Penderecki Quartet on May 21, but I remembered just in time that I have tickets to see Hillary Hahn on that date at Koerner Hall.  It's a bit of a waiting game, as her recovery is not going that well unfortunately, and she's cancelled a lot of concerts, and I expect she will probably cancel this one as well, but hasn't done it officially yet.  I'd probably slightly prefer the Penderecki Quartet, but I'll just wait and see how it plays out.  Also, I don't think they let you cancel concerts just on a whim or the worry that an artist will pull out.  (I'm still a bit annoyed that they rescheduled the Music of Golijov concert so that it overlapped with the Amici concert they are also presenting, but I ended up using the price of the ticket to a jazz concert coming up at Koerner Hall.)

As a brief overview, yesterday I biked downtown.  I stopped in at the BMV near Yonge-Dundas Square.  I was mostly looking for Howl's Moving Castle, though there are a couple of Criterions I am always looking for.  I suppose there is a small chance I would pick up Buñuel's Él, as the bonus features are really good.  (I have a DVD on hold at TPL, but this is fairly recent release and it will take quite some time to work my way up the queue.)  Anyway, I saw Breaking Bad on Blu-Ray, the complete seasons 1, 3 and 4, so I got those.  Why not.  If I do make it to the BMV on Bloor, I'll have to see if they have season 2 or 5.  I was almost out the door, when I saw an interesting Max Beckman and Paris book for only $15, so I got that as well.

I went over to the AGO right after that, though I didn't have much time and decided to skip the Paul McCartney photo exhibit.  I saw the Edna Taçon exhibit instead (where the Naoko Matsubara exhibit had been , and this was definitely more up my alley.  Her early works are quite similar to early Kandinsky, and her later works are akin to Klee with perhaps a touch of Miro.  I'll definitely want to check this out a few times, and it runs through late August.  I'm not quite sure I want to pay $45 for the catalogue, as nice as it is, but the library appears to have a few copies, so I will check one out and decide then.

Edna Taçon, Untitled, 1941

Edna Taçon, Ecstasy (Black Accent), 1944

 

Edna Taçon, Improvisation No. 2, 1946

Edna Taçon, Green Organization, 1943

I also had a chance to stop by the contemporary sculpture garden by Ranbir Sidhu and take some photos, as the previous batch was lost.

Then I ran over to Gagné Contemporary where they have a new show called Mona Lisa with Moustache, which only runs one more week.  I think this piece, which involves cut-outs and interesting shadow play, was perhaps the most interesting.

 

I had a bit more time so I ran upstairs to the Red Head Gallery as well.  Then I grabbed a banana chocolate loaf slice and walked back over to No Frills.  Since my bag was completely full, I actually went to work to drop some stuff off, then biked back to The Well and grabbed Thai food, but ate it at work.  I didn't have a lot of time, but I did update a few things.  I would have finished my time sheet, but I haven't been given some of the codes, which is very frustrating.

I went to the concert at Soundstreams.  I liked some of the pieces a fair bit, though there were just too many pieces (9 premieres in total), and the quartet went offstage to retune between many of them, so the concert lasted well over 2.5 hours!  In the end, it was a bit too much.

I will close by saying this is the very last day to catch Jeff Wall at MOCA.  I was tempted to go again.  Though I went at least twice, and maybe a third time.  I probably would have if the weather had been better or if I could have scored a free pass through the library or if it had extended one more week, since I would have bundled it with a trip west to see Shakespeare Bash'd at the Monarch Tavern.  Anyway, here are a few of my favourite photos from the show.  (I'll circle back and label them tonight, but I'm running late again...)

 

Detail from Insomnia

 

 

 

 

 

Come Through the Other Side of Disappointments

If I had gotten around to it, I'm sure I would have written about how disappointing I was in myself, letting one thing or another keep me from swimming.  It's certainly true that I don't push through to exercise as much as I used to, particularly when it is cold and/or I am wet.  (And I got hit with snow out of nowhere on the bike ride home on Monday.)  But things have generally taken a bit of a turn for the better at work, though I need to press one guy to see if he did the extra tasks I assigned him.  And I was really disappointed to hear that a few senior staff had been let go (though nothing like last year) and that the woman in charge of our Social Equity team had been let go, esp. as I was trying to do more work on the technical side of supporting equity analyses.  I think it is incredibly short-sighted and shows just how cowardly U.S. based companies are.  Sigh.

But the weather may have finally gotten to the point where boots are no longer necessary, and we probably won't have any snow that sticks.  Famous last words of course.  I was able to bike on Thurs., though it rained a fair bit Friday morning, so I was back on the TTC.  I'm making pretty decent progress on this mega-projects book for the review, though I've decided it just isn't a very good book, which is a shame of course.  I'm still only a bit further than 1/4 of the way through Ada, but I'll try to read another big chunk this weekend.

I don't have too many library books out, though I do need to get to Murakami's The City and Its Uncertain Walls, right after I am finished with Ada.  In addition to the other books I have planned to read, I decided I should read Kathy Acker's Don Quixote (and probably before I get that much further with my play, which has Don Quixote and other fantastical dreamers as a running subplot).  I've certainly read excerpts of her works and probably some short stories, but I don't think I've ever read an entire novel, though I may just be forgetting.  She is certainly one of the most transgressive authors out there, along with the Marquis de Sade and Henry Miller!  I think I would pair this with Coover's The Public Burning, and, while I hope my copy sitting in North Carolina, makes it here in time, I may just borrow a copy from Robarts.  This is all probably happening late April/early May.

I have sat down and watched several more Buñuel films, so between the Revue and TIFF (and Ann Arbor ages and ages ago) and home viewing, I have gone through the following:
1929     Un Chien Andalou
1930     L'Âge d'Or   
1953     Él
1961     Viridiana
1962     El ángel exterminador (The Exterminating Angel)
1964     Le journal d'une femme de chambre (Diary of a Chambermaid) 
1965     Simón del Desierto  (Simon of the Desert)
1967     Belle de jour    
1972     Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie)
1977     Cet obscur objet du désir  (That Obscure Object of Desire)

In addition to being influenced by The Exterminating Angel, I think Gilliam was clearly cribbing from The Obscure Object of Desire with all the explosions when he started work on Brazil (and also the radical openness/uncertainty at the end of Belle de Jour).

I think this is quite a good overview of Buñuel's work (up from only seeing Un Chien Andalou prior to this year!), though it looks like I can (and probably will) borrow the following from the library (though I am no longer in such a rush):
1969     La voie lactée  (The Milky Way)
1970     Tristana    
1974     Le fantôme de la liberté  (The Phantom of Liberty)

I won't write a lot about it, as I am already pretty late for the gym, but I am leaning towards ordering a Rita Letendre piece from a gallery in Montreal.  It's on the small side but surprisingly affordable.

Anyway, today I am off to the gym, will need to help my daughter with some math homework, and then I should have just enough time to get to 401 Richmond (and possibly the AGO).  Then I'll grab some Thai food at The Well, drop in at work to pick up some printing and then go over to a Soundstreams concert in the evening.

Tomorrow, I plan on swimming a bit longer (30+ laps) to make up for missing out last week, going to see a Mooredale concert at 3, and dropping off the Buñuel DVDs I have borrowed from Robarts.  I will see if it is feasible to catch Project Hail Mary at Carlton, but it isn't urgent.  But overall, it should be a slightly less frenetic weekend than usual, even though I am off to a late start, per usual...

Ciao!

Artistic Disappointments

It doesn't really upset me, as it doesn't affect me (and it isn't as disastrous a choice as Driving Miss Daisy or The Green Book) but I am disappointed that One Battle After Another won best picture.  I would really have liked to see The Secret Agent get it (which was then shut out of Best Foreign Film as well), though Sinners would have been an ok choice.  This year I saw a surprising number of Best Picture films.  In addition to OBAA and The Secret Agent, I also saw Hamnet and Marty Supreme.  And I did manage to see the animated short films.  I think The Girl Who Cried Pearls was probably the best of the bunch, but any of them (aside from this mawkish Christian fable about a bear and a pine tree) would have been fine.  There's no point in belabouring it, but the only thing I liked about OBAA was Benicio del Toro (and certainly not Sean Penn's (frankly cartoonish) role, which lurches into Jason territory as the (almost) unkillable monster).  Oh well.

The weekend was very mixed in terms of artistic positives and negatives.  I managed to get to the gym early on Sat. and then took the cat over to the vet.  Unfortunately, they want a follow-up visit and think the cone should stay on a few more days.  Sigh.  Then I had a fairly empty day, so I went around to a bunch of galleries.  I probably shouldn't have bothered with Corkin and Thomas Landry as nothing had changed.  I then dropped in at work and set off another long run (though I was extremely frustrated as the computer had crashed early into the Friday night run).  Then I went up to Yorkville and saw a few things there before going up to Davenport to Gallery Gevik.  I had sort of resolved in my mind to pick up one of the Letendre's that they had.  Little did I know that they had a Letendre show in Dec. and the pieces I was considering had sold.  (The newspapers do a terrible job in reporting on these smaller shows, and I generally don't check routinely, though after they moved from Yorkville I probably wouldn't have gone anyway, as it is pretty inconvenient to go except by bike.)  Then I asked about another piece I had considered purchasing, coming back a few times to look at it.  It also had sold.  I guess it was just not meant to be.  They do have some other Letendre pieces, though I wasn't crazy about the works on paper and the canvases were enormous and way outside my price range.  Too bad.

There is a Yorkville gallery that has a couple of Letendre works for sale, including this one.

They have another one I like a bit better, but probably not enough to buy it, so I may just wait and see if anything more to my taste comes on the market.  It's not like I have any open space anyway.

I had a bit of time, so I went to the original Bau-Xi gallery, though not the AGO.  Then I made it to 401 Richmond.  It was a few minutes before 5.  Red Head Gallery was basically shut up, and I was very disappointed that another gallery I had planned to see (and which is supposed to stay open until 6 on Sat.) was closed!  So I will have to try to hit 401 Richmond next Sat.  I think all in all, I probably should have skipped the detour to the Distillery and then I would have had enough time at 401 Richmond, but the real disappointment was the pieces I was interested in at Gevik were gone.

I saw The Herald at Buddies in Bad Times.  There were some elements in it that were interesting, but overall it didn't do a lot for me.  That's pretty typical for the experimental stuff that gets put up at Buddies.

Sun. there was a bit too much snow, but it didn't stick.  Still, I decided not to bike to the swimming pool, and I guess I'll try to go tonight and possibly Wed.  I was a bit delayed by the St. Patrick's Day parade but managed to make it to a Bach concert at Mazzolini Hall.  It was terrific.

Then I went back to work for a bit, though it was a fairly short trip before I had to head out for the cold read thing.  I think they really should have picked a different night.  There were few actors around, and I ended up reading some small roles.  The guy I had hoped to tackle the Frederick role in my Fringe piece decided to pull out.  I did get a bit of a lead on two other actors who might sign on and potentially a stage manager, though one with limited experience.  And I think next Sun. I should round up a few more, and then we'll see how many parts remain.  So on the whole, Sunday was a better day, artistically-speaking, and didn't have as many disappointments as Saturday held.

Planning Ahead (Mid March 2026)

I went from having a fairly open couple of weeks in mid-March to cramming in a bunch of things and will be out most of the time until April.  Even April is starting to get busy, as I saw several nights that I might stop by Hirut if nothing else is going on.  I do hope that most of these nights I can just bike over, assuming that the weather holds and we don't get any significant snow.  The Rex hasn't even posted its shows for April, and there will surely be a few things I want to see there.

Anyway, I found out from a blurb in The Star that Assembly Theatre hosts a George F. Walker play called Syndrome.  This appears to be a world premiere.  (I think Walker has retired his blog and now seems to focus on Substack, so it's harder for me to keep track of his productions.)  It is another play about the crisis in urban education.  This one appears to be written for teens, so may pull back a little from some of the nihilism of his darker pieces, though several of his recent pieces have ended on an upbeat note.  Anyway, I am looking forward to seeing it (and not finding out that I just missed it, as happened to me a few times).  It runs through this week at Assembly Theatre, with more info here.  Assembly has another play happening in late March into very early April called Anywhere, which was a big Fringe hit in 2018.  I don't remember seeing this, though I might have.  2018 was the year I put on my own play at the Fringe (Final Exam), and while I did see quite a few shows that summer at Fringe, my attention was on getting my work up and running.  Anyway, Leroy Street Theatre is involved and Cass Van Wyck is directing (she actually played one of the roles during the Fringe run, making me think I didn't go, as I probably would have remembered seeing her).  So I think I will go.  The actors are actually alternating roles, which is an interesting idea.  I guess if I love it, I might try to see it with the roles reversed, but I somehow doubt I'll have the time.

Thurs. I am off to see the puppets of Little Willy at Canadian Stage.  This has been on the books (my books) for some time.*  If the show is extremely short (apparently there is a lot of improvisation and it can run from 45 minutes to nearly 2 hours!), then I will be tempted to go to Bad Dog for a comedy show that's part of Sketch Fest, though I suspect I won't, esp. as it means backtracking significantly.  I am debating between two different comedy sketch shows for Friday night, both over at the Theatre Centre.  I wish they had the schedule set up so I could do both, but that just doesn't seem to be the case.  I have not booked that as of yet.

Sat. I have to bring my kitten back to the vet for a quick look to see if all went well from her surgery.  (I had her spayed.  She seems to be recovering quite well.  Surprisingly, she has been much more affectionate lately, often trying to sleep next to me when I am crashing on the couch.  Just like her brother, she managed to knock her cone off.  I'm glad that will be coming off for good on Sat., as I can put the covers back on the litter box.)  I have to figure out where I will fit in the gym or swimming, though I am leaning towards going to the gym early on Sat., but I will actually have to commit to getting over on time, and then swimming at Jimmie Simpson on Sunday around noon.  (This will work out reasonably well if I can bike, but I see they are forecasting possible snow on Sunday, which would really throw a wrench in those plans.)  I don't have a lot planned for the afternoon, but I would like to try to get to some of the art galleries like 401 Richmond and then one or two in Yorkville.  I am off to see The Herald at Buddies in the evening, which looks like it should be pretty wild.

Interestingly, I overlooked the fact that had a Bach concert scheduled at Koerner Hall for Sunday, and then overbooked myself with Imm-Permanent Resident at Factory.  (I think this was something I had tried to see at Theatre Centre on an earlier run, but it should be a bit more polished now.)  They were gracious enough to move the ticket to next Thurs., so that week is starting to fill up a bit now...  Then I will need to head over to Dovercourt for the Warm Reading event.  (I have the next chunk of my play going up in April, but I will use the time this Sunday to try to finish casting!)

I have written on and off about my new Fringe play.  I did a pretty substantial rewrite, collapsing two couples into just one, collapsing this down to 4 scenes (from 8 or so) and elevating one character to be a second focal point.  In general, the feedback has been good.  While it can definitely still be improved, I feel that this is now something that actors can sign on for without any reservations, which helps me in recruiting the rest of the cast and a stage manager, though I am also hoping the director can help a bit with that...)  Interestingly, there is an opportunity to have a script developed by the Coal Mine team, but they only want scripts with 5 actors, and most of what I write nowadays is 7+ parts, so not economical at all!  I'm debating doing a deep rewrite on a piece that I wrote back in Chicago called Corporate Codes of Conduct (or sometime Corporate Codes of Contact), but I always really wanted to call it Yellow Fever Dream, though I didn't dare.  This is after the second half of the play where the main character is sick and his new Asian girlfriend (that he met through work, as one does, naturally, despite it being against company policy) keeps dropping by.  The first half was supposedly all this clever stuff about code-breaking and cryptography, heavily inspired by Stoppard's Arcadia.  I think the only way this would work would be to start from him being sick in bed (the way the 2nd act started) and then take anything that actually worked from the first act and have it be these distorted flashbacks.  I think this would make it much closer to Miller's Broken Glass, though maybe I am confusing this with a completely different Miller play, After the Fall.  (It looks like there is a revival of Broken Glass going on in London right now, but I managed to see this in North York in 2017, though clearly my memory is a bit spotty.  I saw Eclipse Theatre doing After the Fall in Chicago even earlier than that, though I seem to not have scanned my program sadly...)  I don't really have the time to rework this (with a deadline in early April), but it is a bit of an interesting challenge, so I'll probably at least make the attempt.  Famous last words...

I may have mentioned that I did finish up Faulkner's The Wild Palms.  It was overall pretty good with a strong focus on people just trying to get by, buffeted by much larger societal forces.  Almost none of the plot about the young couple makes sense in a society where abortion is legal (though we will now start getting a bunch of tragic novels about life for women in post-Roe America due to the contemptible Supreme Court justices).  Tess Slesinger's novel, The Unpossessed, came out in 1934, beating Faulkner's The Wild Palms slightly to the punch (1939) in terms of being an early and somewhat daring novel in tackling abortion when it was not legal in the US.  I'm actually a bit surprised that I hadn't heard more about this aspect of The Wild Palms, though I suppose I wasn't really searching for anything along those lines.  I did finally watch Varda's La Pointe Courte, which was inspired by The Wild Palms, though mostly in terms of its formal structure and not much about its story line.  I'm now sort of in the final stretches of reading all the core Faulkner.  I probably will skip his first novels, as well as Pylon, but later this year I will probably read Sanctuary and the follow-up Requiem for a Nun.  At that point, I would only have The Hamlet, The Town and The Mansion left to go, and I may aim for 2027 to read the Snopes Trilogy.

I'm trying to watch a few Bunuel films before I need to get them back to the library.  Interestingly, I ordered a copy of Diary of a Chambermaid, and the copy I got was from the VPL collection.  I double-checked that this was not supposed to be in circulation.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to find this copy.**  It's not with the French or the Spanish DVDs on the shelves.  This isn't one of the ones I had pulled out to watch (and are currently MIA).  I think what I probably should do is just pull down all the books in front of the DVDs, and take photos so that I can keep track of which DVDs I have (and start working my way slowly through them, as it is absurd that I own this huge film library and watch so little of it).  As it happens, I saw Diary of a Chambermaid at TIFF, so I don't need to watch it immediately, but I want to know where it is in case I want to watch it a second time.  I need to watch the other Bunuel films I have borrowed before Sun. when I will be returning everything to Robarts (and possibly donating a few DVDs by Chabrol, Rohmer and Godard (the last one was support to replace a damaged DVD in the TPL system, but they stupidly will not accept it and all donations go into their book sale)).

I did manage to finish the Winterson book but wasn't that impressed by it.  Then I moved on to Nabokov's Ada, or Ardor.  This is perhaps the most playful Nabokov novel I have read, heavily inspired by Joyce's Ulysses.  The early Russian novels have largely left me cold, and I didn't think Pnin was nearly as hilarious as a lot of people do.  (The same is definitely true for Amis's Lucky Jim, which I didn't like at all!)  I could sort of appreciate Lolita but didn't love it, for sure.  But I really am digging Ada.  It's quite quirky that this is set in an alternative universe where Russian influence over Alaska and the Yukon and perhaps even further south is unbroken.  I have no idea if Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union was directly inspired by Ada, but certainly Chabon is an admirer of Nabokov, so quite possibly this is where the seeds were planted.  My march through Nabokov has been fairly slow, but the fact that this novel is on my wavelength gives me a bit more push to keep going.  Given that Transparent Things is very short and seems very much in the same vein as Ada, I think I will try to read it in the very near future.  I probably am just going to skip Glory.  I'm a bit torn between going back to his first "English" novels or just going to Pale Fire, which is probably the most "important" of the novels that I haven't read.  I'm not sure I ever will reread Lolita, but I might in my 70s, and, if so, I will read The Enchanter first (which was a "warm up" to Lolita and which has the benefit of being fairly short).  I'm going to skip Look at the Harlequins!  I suppose there is a reasonable chance I'll try to read his memoir, Speak, Memory someday, but it is quite a low priority.

Anyway, my immediate reading looks like this: alternating between Ada and this book on mega-projects which I promised to review for an academic journal, when I hit Part 2 of Ada, I will take a detour and read Shulz's The Street of Crocodiles, then finish up Ada, Murakami's The City and Its Uncertain Walls (which will probably be overdue from the library by then and I can't renew it any more), O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find, McCullers's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Shteyngart's Vera or Faith, Nabokov's Transparent Things, Sorokin's The Queue, Offill's Weather, Ghosh's The Calcutta Chromosome, Narayan's The Vendor of Sweets and Reva's Endling.  Even this is probably planning out too far (esp. as my reading time on the TTC will be drastically cut by then), but it's good to have a bit of a plan, even if I do depart from it frequently.  For instance, if I decide to skim Miller's After the Fall and Broken Glass for good measure...

So that's what I expect to get up to in the next while... 

Edit (03/13): So glad I didn't change my ticket to Little Willy.*  I was worried about being in the front row and having to crane my neck up, but the stage was eye level and I had a really close look at the puppets to the point I could see the strings and when they even got tangled!  But it was a long show (2.5 hours with no break, and there was a talk back after that.)  Anyway, I had been low-key planning on watching the Oscar Nominees in the Animation category, and I guess I just missed out on seeing the slate at Paradise and the Revue.  It turns out it is playing Sat. evening and Sun. morning at The Fox, though I have conflicts with both dates.  Then I turned to TIFF, and they are showing the animations at 5:45, so I can slip in just after work.  (I've checked, and there are tons of tickets left, which is often a problem at TIFF.)  I'll probably just hit No Frills and come home, but if the timing works out, I might see something at the Toronto Sketch Fest, though I'll be on the streetcar, not biking, as it is probably going to snow today and early next week.  Nooooo!

* I briefly looked into switching Little Willy to next week and going to see Tafelmusik's program of Bach cantatas.  (And indeed I had a free ticket to a different Bach cantata program put on by the Toronto Consort, but had to give it back because it conflicted with Warm Reads.)  But it ultimately seemed to much of a hassle, and I find that I just don't care that much for cantatas.  I am possibly going to go to one cantata concert at the Toronto Bach Festival, but that is probably more than enough.

** I finally tracked this down.  Yea!  One small win against entropy...

Spring Thaw

It's way too early to say that winter is over, and we could well get another cold snap and perhaps even some sleet or snow.  (Please no more!)

But it was really nice out Sunday as well as Monday.  I was able to go out biking with no problems (I mean aside from the fact that the chain was still pretty rusty even after applying chain oil) and the derailleur is acting up a bit.  The roads were clear and even the bike paths with only a few exceptions were fine.  On Sunday, I actually biked to Jimmie Simpson.  I got there at 1:50, and the pool closed at 2:30, but I powered through 21 laps, which I thought was pretty good overall.  

I then biked to work.  In general, King was fine in terms of potholes in the outer lane (where bicycles are relegated) except for right at the BikeShare station at Church and King, where the pavement is in terrible shape.  I didn't have a lot of time, but I dropped off some food and did a bit of work, then I biked up to Carlton to see The Bride!, which I enjoyed, aside from the ghost of Mary Shelley.  It really is a total mash-up of Bride of Frankenstein and Bonnie and Clyde.

I got home and tried to power through Winterson's One Aladdin Two Lamps, which was overdue and I couldn't renew it.  I did finish it on Monday.  In fact, I could have biked to work but decided that 1) I wanted a tune-up before cycling in weekday traffic and 2) I could use the time on the TTC to finish the book.  I am already thinking ahead to how I really want to avoid taking the TTC as much as possible, but this will cut deeply into my reading time.  I generally sided with the NY Times reviewer who didn't care much for the book, as it mixes very short summaries of various tales from 1001 Nights with all kinds of philosophical observations loosely tied to the tales.  It really wasn't well organized, ostensibly by design.

Anyway, the bike is in the shop, and I should be able to pick it up on Thurs. in the late morning and probably ride in to work (and then stop off at Canadian Stage on the way home to see Little Willy).

So I have two more days (at least) on the TTC, but as I said, the weather has been really nice, so waiting outside on the bus isn't nearly as painful as it was in Jan. and Feb.

  

Bookcase Diversion

I think I had mentioned that Toby had jumped on one of the bookcase shelves and broke it.  I suppose way back in the day I installed this incorrectly, though I am not 100% sure that this wasn't actually a manufacturing defect (with the shelf support upside down).

It doesn't really matter whose fault it was (although most of the blame goes to the cat), but I couldn't leave it like that.  The bookcases showed up in two boxes, and I set aside time this weekend to assemble them.  

The white stripe to the left is where there was an odd triangular shelf.  I had to remove that because the two bookcases side by side will be slightly wider than the original bookcase.

On Sat. I did get the shelf down (as in the photo) and even did some painting.  I managed to get one of the bookcases started by Sat. evening and then finished it up on Sunday.  One thing I did this time, which I almost never do is install the anti-tip hardware that anchors it to the wall, in case the cats try to jump up again!

 

I really had planned to finish the second one on Sunday, but really didn't feel that well.  I was getting some strange sort of vertigo and was dizzy when I stood up; I actually swayed and nearly fell over once or twice while walking!  That was very disconcerting, and I decided I just needed to go to bed.

Part Two:

I feel much better, and I managed to get most of the books onto the shelves.  (The objet d'art on the top is by Vancouver artist Vanessa Lam.)

I should definitely be able to get the other bookcase up tonight.  I have no idea if they will be as sturdy as advertised, but the span is considerably shorter, which should help.  One bonus feature is that I can use quite a bit more of the poetry shelf on the wall to the left.  I think between that and saving the top shelf of the second bookcase for poetry, I should be able to get this in decent shape.  (Right now there are poetry collections stacked all over the place!)

One of the more surprising things is that I banged the broken shelf back into place.  The boards were a bit bowed, but it was still a mostly functional bookcase if used more for display of a few books and vases and seashells and whatever else Ikea thinks should be on bookcases aside from books!  We left it outside with a sign saying Free on it.  I fully expected we would have to hang onto it until big trash day, but it was gone within 24 hours.  I hope its next owner appreciates it and can use it for a few years.  I'm pretty glad we managed to keep it out of the trash.  That was certainly unexpected.

Part Three:

It definitely was a big push, but I managed to get the second bookcase together by midnight and then got the last of the books out of the hallway.  It will definitely take a while to get this properly sorted, but I actually have slightly more space for books now, and I just have to hope that they hold up for a few years.

 

Even the poetry shelf is more functional now, though it badly needs to be reorganized.  I've managed to get through a considerable amount of poetry in Jan. and Feb., and the piles in the living room are manageable.  There are several large piles of books in the back room that I will have to start tackling in the next tranche of reading.
 

 

Cheated!

There's really no other way to put it.  I was scrambling to get my final edits in for the Toronto Star Short Story contest, and in fact I made some of the edits on transit on the way back from Paradise (where I had seen Wong Kar-Wai's 2046*).  Clearly I should have done it the night before, but I had other things going on.  Of course, we were stuck on the 72 bus for a bit while the bus driver took a break!  I managed to get the last edits done at 11:50, but then my laptop acted up, so I sent it to the desktop and then logged in to upload the story. 

It was 11:56, but the server said that the contest had ended, even though the deadline was midnight!  I even took a screenshot (the time is in the lower right corner), as I was so frustrated.

It's not like I thought I had a chance of winning, but I had wanted to prove that I could get this material in shape and sent off.  One thing that is interesting (to me) is that the fact that I write almost nothing but playlets (and blog posts) is that my writing now consists of almost nothing but dialogue and stage directions.  Something I will have to work on if I ever move back to other forms of creative writing.  I guess now that it is done, I should see if White Wall Review or anything else is taking very short fiction and ship it off there, so it isn't a complete waste of time (when I need to finish my Fringe edits!).

 

* I'm glad I saw 2046, but I don't like it anywhere near as much as In the Mood for Love.  I guess I just don't like the main character turning into such a cad whereas he was a much more sympathetic character in Mood for Love.  Perhaps the events in that movie tainted him, but he had at least one and perhaps two chances at love and he threw them away for no good reason.  And the sci-fi novel that he was writing based on his experiences was naff, based on what was shot for 2046.

Quick Update (Mid Feb.)

Once again I cut things a bit too close.  I was supposed to meet my son at Yonge-Dundas Square right before Some Like It Hot.  Fortunately, in the morning I had checked and realized that this was playing in the theatre right there at Yonge-Dundas (across from the Jazz Bistro in fact) and not on King St.  The theatres on King would have been a lot more convenient for a few reasons, but it was not to be.

Anyway, I found out that I had to rerun a long model run.  I decided I really needed to push through and get it restarted, as it basically runs overnight.  So I didn't leave until 6:30, and I was to meet my son at 7!  And I hadn't eaten!  I decided with all the potential delays and waiting on the subway, it would be just as fast to walk, even on the slushy sidewalks.  I made it to Eaton Centre by 6:45, making pretty good time.  Sadly, there wasn't much I wanted to eat at the new southern food court and some of the restaurants had closed, which I thought was weird.  I ended up grabbing some passable sushi and quickly walked over to the Square (or rather under, as there is a TTC underpass I utilized).  I was only a couple of minutes late.  I ate the sushi, and we went in.  He enjoyed it.  I thought it was well done, though the set is (not surprisingly) on a smaller scale and less impressive than the Broadway run.  I definitely think a number or even two could be trimmed from the first act, but the second moves at a good pace.  My favourite number is "Let's Be Bad," which opens the second act.  

I've managed to get through a few more poetry collections.  I'm finding that I don't care as much for Wellwater as Karen Solie's earlier collections like Pigeon or Short Haul Engine, and I really didn't like The Caiplie Caves.  It's just as well that I read the earlier collections first, or I definitely wouldn't have continued.  I suppose this happens.  I found that my favourite Ronna Bloom collection was Public Works, and her other collections are ok but just don't speak to me the same way.  I'm not enjoying the early poems of Jack Spicer and all and generally find him very over-rated, but I'll push through.  I'm generally enjoying Phil Quinn's The Sub Way, which is all about the Yonge St. subway, which really did reshape Toronto.  I thought he was actually a subway driver (much like Chris Pannell was a bus driver and wrote several really good poems about driving the bus), but that doesn't seem to be the case after all.  I am finding it hard to pull out a subway poem that would work for the transportation anthology, but I'll keep trying, and maybe look over some of the poems here that didn't make the cut, whereas I can definitely find a bus poem or two that would slot in from Pannell's work (and in general, Pannell's work clicks more often for me...).

I'm halfway through Ben Jelloun's The Last Friend but actually am fairly disappointed in it, though I can't explain why without SPOILERS.

SPOILERS

Basically, half of the book is told from the perspective of one friend (Ali) and the second half from the other's (Mamed).  Towards the end of Mamed's life, he writes this terrible letter, saying that Ali was not a good friend and had cheated him (pretty much throughout their whole friendship).  Ali is incredibly hurt but thinks that probably Mamed is just lashing out due to his fear of death.  Then you read the second half, expecting to find out why Mamed has such a different view on their relationship.  I skipped ahead, and in fact Mamed clearly admits he is in the wrong, and then sends a letter set to reach Ali after his death, saying that in fact Ali was in the right all along.  Lame.  Such a missed opportunity.  It would have been a far more interesting novel if Ben Jelloun had explored the key differences in perspective of the two and how there can be such a gulf in the way two people view the world.  I'm fairly sure that Durrell's Alexandria Quartet explores this at some length, hinting that there can never be a single source of truth and that all narrators are unreliable.  I really ought to reread this, though I don't know when I would find the time.

I'm making decent progress through Faulkner's The Wild Palms ✓, and I should finish it sometime over the weekend and then watch Varda's La Pointe Courte when it turns up from the library.  I think my current plan is to read Bruno Shulz's Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass ✓ (inspired by finally watching Has's movie, which is extremely loosely based on these stories), Winterson's One Aladdin Two Lamps ✓ (inspired by Shahrazad and the Arabian Tales), Shulz's The Street of Crocodiles, O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find, then Murakami's The City and Its Uncertain Walls and finally McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.  The Ottawa trip will fall somewhere in the middle of this, so I'll be reading Nabokov's Ada, or Ardor, and I'll probably just push through and finish whatever I haven't read on the train once we get back.  I'll tackle Shteyngart's Vera, or Faith after McCullers, and then I'll definitely be into the second tranche of books for 2026, which includes novels by Robert Maxwell, Narayan, Mahfouz, Amis and Thien and probably Offill's Weather.  And maybe rereading Murdoch's Under the Net, though that may end up in the third tranche.  

Weekend Miscalculations

I could have sworn that when I looked up the Matty Eckler swim schedule, it said lane swimming was 1:30-3, but this is the time for leisure swimming, which is essentially useless to me for exercise, though I guess I could have tried to swim sideways laps in the deep end.  Obviously, I should have just run over to Jimmie Simpson at noon, but I think it will still be another couple of weeks before I am comfortable biking.  While I did get a few laps in midweek in Regent Park, I am far, far behind on my swimming, and without the biking, I am getting badly out of shape.  Sigh...

At any rate, I ran back to the mall and got a closet rod which I will attempt to install tomorrow and a couple of things from the grocery store that I had forgotten the day before.  I had just enough time to get a model run launched, then I headed over to Hirut.  I got there in the nick of time.  The back table was full (though honestly I think people were just hogging the chairs, and I probably could have squeezed in...), so I actually sat right at the front, but I did get in and wasn't shut out as has happened a couple of times now!  I knew I was only going to stay for the first set, though Dave Young and his group were really good, and it would have been terrific if I managed to get more of it.  Dave called a tune by Benny Golson, and we chatted briefly about Benny Golson and the fact that I had seen him twice in Chicago.*  Anyway, I went over to Thai Room and grabbed fried tofu to go and ate that on the train to Ossington.

I met my friend Annika at the Paradise, and we saw Rohmer's La Collectionneuse.  I liked the fact that it was in color, but this was actually a fairly hard film to swallow (even more than My Night at Maud's), as the men are even more pompous and vain (with very little reason to be in my view) and they are so appallingly sexist to the young woman, Haydee, who does seem to jump into bed with almost any inappropriate man (and only a very few who are at least age-appropriate).  I guess it is supposed to be a satire focused on the man who wants to open an art gallery (but shows no real affinity for the work that would be involved), but it is kind of an ugly one.  I'm a bit worried that I am not on Rohmer's wavelength after all, as I have so much of his work on DVD.  I guess I can slowly watch them and try to sell them off...  It took us a while to find a place to eat, as she wanted something a bit less spartan than many of the places around Dovercourt and the first Mexican place we went into had nothing I could eat, which was a surprising letdown.  We ended up at this place that was mostly a bar but with a limited Filipino menu (somewhat similar to the Zebra pub in Cambridge).  There was only one thing on the menu that either of us was willing to try (a tofu and kale dish), but it was surprisingly good.  I didn't appreciate the fact that they hustled us out the door, but I would be willing to eat there again, though it is pretty unlikely I will, in fact, go back.  I'll probably stick with Ethiopian or the bahn mi sandwich place, though it is very spartan indeed.

When I got home, I spent a bit more time organizing books and DVDs, as the package from my step-mother arrived!  I have an advance copy of Gwendoline Riley's The Palm House, but I want to check on this when the book is actually published in April, as sometimes the final published version is a bit different.

What is a bit more upsetting is that I simply cannot find a few DVDs that I was planning on watching.  They were "stored" near the TV, but then they were bundled up during a cleaning jag, and I can't locate them.  They should be upstairs, but they don't appear to be.  The next most likely place is in the back study, so I suppose I will just have to buckle down and straighten this room up.  I imagine there will be more (when I finally come across this missing stack), but I am currently on the hunt for Invader Zim Vol. 3, the Planet Earth DVD box set, and two of the films from Satyajit Ray's Calcutta trilogy: Seemabaddha (Company Limited) and Jana Aranya (The Middleman).  I actually had managed to watch the first film, The Adversary, which is about a young man struggling to find work in Calcutta, so it is back on the shelves where it belongs, but the others are in some mysterious place.  I do want to turn them up soon, but I really need to focus on getting this new bookcase put together and finishing up my Fringe script.  So the straightening up will have to wait for a while.
 

* I definitely wish that back when I was going to the Jazz Showcase I had a phone that recorded as well as the one I have now!  I would love to have saved some of those gigs for posterity.  I see that Joe Segal's heirs are starting to release recordings from the Jazz Showcase.  Maybe I should write and encourage them to release more shows by Andrew Hill, Benny Golson and Dave Holland, which are ones that grabbed me the most, though pretty much anything from the Jazz Showcase will potentially be of interest to me.

Cats and Chaos

I ended cutting it a bit close to getting to You, Always at Canadian Stage (because I decided I would take the replacement bus over) and then to the Arvo Pärt at 90 concert at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church (though this was because the copier at work was acting up on me and had to be restarted!).  I have been some other large church north of Bloor for a Soundstreams concert, but this was the first time at Yorkminster.  

The concert was good, though it's hard for me to really appreciate completely vocal pieces.  I was also pretty far in the back.  It was fortunate that 3 of the people in our pew left at intermission, so we could spread out a bit!  I nearly left Martry! there (on loan from the library) and had even left the church (after the encores) and had to fight my way upstream to get back in.  Fortunately, it was still there in the pew rack.  I just finished reading this last night, so am moving on to Faulkner's The Wild Palms next.*

Anyway, the kittens are basically feeling at home now, and I am sort of waiting for them to grow into full grown cats and cause less havoc.  Maybe I am being too optimistic about that.  On the positive side of the ledger, we still don't have mice in the house.  Also, Rho has definitely gotten friendlier, though she still doesn't like being picked up.  Both of them seek out attention, though on their own terms, but still a bit surprising, as this neediness is more of a canine trait.  Still, most of my cats have been pretty social.

But wow do they make a mess of things.  I have tried spraying, but they have really shredded the couch (despite the scratching post being right there, which they do use once in a while but not exclusively), and we'll probably have to replace this at some point, though again I might as well wait until they are a bit older and hopefully more sedate.  This cartoon is sadly quite accurate.

In addition, Toby loves jumping on shelves.  It is very upsetting that he keeps knocking down books from the poetry shelf in the upstairs bedroom.  I honestly don't know how many times he has to learn that this is just too precarious and not a place for him to perch.  Also, he jumped on the upstairs bookcase and knocked an entire shelf over!  It's tilted over at the moment, with the books ready to topple over at any moment, so I had to order a bookcase replacement.  I tried to find one that was sturdier, as, in general, I fill bookcases to their limit and beyond.  I have a bookcase in the basement that is showing signs of bowing dangerously, so I decided I would replace that at the same time.  This replacement showed up first, and I have moved it upstairs and tucked it behind the dining room table.  The bottom shelf is now handling the overflow art books.  And the other shelf has a bunch of DVDs, focused on the movies that I have been meaning to watch next.  So it has helped get things a bit more organized, provided that Toby doesn't try to jump on the bookcase and knock everything over.  (Also, when this box from my step-mother arrives, it will mean struggling once more to fit everything into place...)

I haven't quite gotten everything together for today's outing, but I think I am going to try to get some hardware at Home Depot, go swimming, come back and grab some dairy at the grocery store, then head over to Hirut to catch Dave Young's first set, and then take Line 2 all the way over to the Paradise.  

This evening, I want to finish watching Has's The Hourglass Sanatorium and at least start putting the new bookcase together downstairs.  Any remaining time needs to be spent on getting my Fringe script revised.  It's coming together, but I really need to just push through and get it out to the director and the actors, ideally tomorrow.

* I suppose this means it is time to get around to watching Varda's La Point Court, which was heavily inspired by The Wild Palms.  It looks like it should be reasonably simple to get from the library when I am through with Faulkner.

Squeezing in Even More on the Weekends

As indicated in the last post, weekends are usually pretty full for me.  This weekend, I am off to see a play at Canadian Stage, then see a Soundstreams concert (and I plan on going to the gym this morning).  I didn't have a lot planned on Sunday -- just swimming and then going to see a movie (Rohmer's La Collectionneuse) at Paradise.  However, I was just at Hirut for two evenings of great jazz with Mike Murley, Reg Schwager & Neil Swainson (and I managed to get quite a bit of work done on revising my Fringe play!).  I saw that they will have Dave Young playing a set on Sunday, starting at 4.  I don't have to be at the Paradise until 6, so I could probably stay as late as 5:20, but through the first set anyway, so I am leaning towards doing that.

But things get really crazy next Sunday.  I was trying to get to one of the Mooredale Concerts where the guest artist was going to play several Prokofiev piano sonatas.  The concert starts at 3:15, but I have to be over at TIFF to see another Buñuel film at 4, so that wasn't going to work.  I decided to try the "kids" version instead, which starts at 1:15 and wraps up by 2:15 or so.  (It might make going to the gym beforehand a bit challenging, so I need to really start on time next weekend!)  Now years ago, I took my son to one of the Mooredale children's concerts and it was interesting in how they really explained things to the kids, so it was very educational, but a bit annoying in how they broke the main piece up into separate movements and talked between each of them.  My guess is they won't break up individual sonatas, but I guess I'll find out.  I'm sure I would have preferred the full concert at 3:15, but this should still be entertaining.  Anyway, at 8, I then will mosey on over to the Rex to see a group led by Ewen Farncombe playing a couple of sets dedicated to Monk's music, so that should be great.  (Murley did one Monk tune on Thurs., and I believe 3 on Fri.  They even took requests!  I wasn't thinking quickly enough, so if I see him back at the Rex or Hirut and he takes requests again, I will ask for "Someone to Watch Over Me."  Murley played a bit of Kern and Cole Porter over the past two evenings, but no Gershwin; I don't think I've heard him play Gershwin.)  I don't think I need to worry about reserving a seat on Sunday, but I guess I'll find out.

I'm actually going to the Rex at least once and probably twice next week (before the Monk showcase).  I'll be seeing Gary Smulyan, backed by Neil Swainson and Terry Clarke.  I reserved a spot on Sat. (and I'll likely stick around for the late set).  I doubt I need to reserve on Wed., so I didn't do that.  Again, I'll find out...  I'm also seeing a movie at the Revue (De Palma's Blow Out) and another Buñuel at TIFF.  And seeing Some Like It Hot at Mirvish with my son.  So I am out virtually the entire week, aside from Monday.  (Maybe I'll run over to the AGO on Monday just for something to do...)  But I will be able to focus a lot on writing while I am at Hirut or The Rex, so it definitely doesn't feel like wasted time!

Sometimes you just can't make things work out, however.  I was supposed to see a RCM concert featuring the music of Golijov, but there was the big storm and they rescheduled it.  However, they rescheduled it to conflict with an Amici concert (indeed the only Amici concert I see all season!).  I wrote back trying to shame them into moving it, but I don't think I'll have much success.  I've also not managed to see Allison Au very often, as her gigs usually conflict with something else I am seeing.  I think I might manage to see her at the Rex in March, but even that is looking dicey.

My reading is going reasonably well, especially with all the time I am spending on the subway or streetcars.  I am halfway through Martyr! and will probably finish it over the long weekend.  I've read through more poetry, including two collections by Jana Prikryl.  I don't enjoy her work as much as Solie's, but there are some solid poems.  I've generally struggled to find poems about cycling.  Prikryl has written one short poem about cycling called "A Banquet" from her Midwood collection, and I could see including that in the anthology.  Once in a while, when I am feeling exceptionally ambitious, I also gather up poems about travel and tourism (for a second anthology!), and I thought "Jet Lag" would fit in with the others well.  So that's going along ok.  I have 5 or so poetry collections out from the library, and then I need to start going through the huge stack of poetry books I own and haven't read (probably half of which are from Brick Books).

But my main focus this week, when I have any free time is to get the second draft of At Home with the Bard done.  It's really shaping up, and I think I can circulate this by Monday.  That's the goal anyway.  At that point I need to get much more serious about casting and landing a stage manager and someone who can run the lights.

 

Over-stuffed weekend (Early Feb. 2026)

Virtually every weekend for me is a bit over-stuffed, and I likely have used that exact title before, so now I have to distinguish between them...

But this was one that had me seeing two plays (Mischief at Tarragon and Witch at Soulpepper), going to see the Cowboy Junkies at Koerner Hall, and then going to Warm Company (the successor to Toronto Cold Reads) on Sunday.  It would have been tight, but I attempted to go swimming at Regent Park, only to find that the lane swim was cancelled.  I was pretty upset, though in truth I mostly wanted to warm up in the spa pool area, and that hasn't even been open the last two times I went.  I think it would have been pretty disappointing all the way around had I been able to get in.  Nonetheless, I will see if I can get some swimming in on Tues. or Wed. evening this week.

Being blocked in that avenue, I took the Dundas streetcar over to Yonge-Dundas Sqaure and then popped into BMV.  I picked up Up and Alien on Blu-ray.  I don't think I have Up on DVD, but I might.  If so, I can try to sell that off.  I still regret not picking up Howl's Moving Castle on Blu-ray at the BMV on Bloor, so I will keep looking for that to turn up again.  Then I cut across on Queen, stopping in at City Hall to drop off More and More and More.  There was some Olympic Games viewing party at Nathan Philips Square, but it was way too cold and very few people were out.  I then continued on and made it up to Tarragon with about 15 minutes to spare.

I loved the set for Mischief (a small reserve store set inside a whale skeleton) and the video projections were first-rate.  The interactions between the store clerk and her uncle and aunt(?) were good, and clearly the playwright (who also played the store clerk) is going for something like Kim's Convenience (or even Corner Gas), but I felt that too much was subtext about her trauma of her mother disappearing and not grounded in the actual text that the audience gets to hear.  After all, she goes on and on about how she is fine and that she feels paying attention to this statue of Cornwallis just is allowing Cornwallis to live rent-free in the community's head, but then she explodes on her uncle, attacking him for no good reason, as well as, more justifiably though less plausibly, on a racist customer.  And she literally explodes the statue with fireworks from the store.  Mostly the interactions she has with the white customer and then a "good guy" in the woods aren't satisfying in the sense that she starts screaming at the customer, telling him that he stinks, and he glowers at her and then leaves the store.  Exqueeze me?  And then the "good guy" turns out, extremely implausibly, to be a cop, who says that she will be charged with criminal mischief, but then she just turns back up at the store, and we never find out if she has actually been charged and just let go to turn up later or if they don't think they can actually make the charges stick or what.  Basically, she writes herself into these corners and then doesn't do the hard work to get herself out.  I understand the challenges, facing some of these myself, but it doesn't change the fact that there are massive problems with the script.  Personally, I didn't like any of the interactions with the 300 year old spirit of her ancestors.  This was particularly lazy writing.  (Naturally, Joshua Chong over at the Star loved it, telling me once again that I will never enjoy a show that he likes and if he dislikes something, I will probably find a lot of merit in it.)

I spent a bit of time at work, mostly making some improvements to bid we are putting in for a project in Alberta, then I grabbed a sandwich at Subway, and took the train up Koerner Hall.  I've seen the Cowboy Junkies three times.  Once in their glory days (1990 or so) when they opened for Bruce Hornsby in Detroit, and then in 2023 at Danforth Music Hall and now at Koerner Hall.  I'm pretty sure I was supposed to see them at Massey Hall but the band came down with Covid and the concert was scrapped.  I enjoyed it quite a bit, though they are far more muted and a bit more depressed than they were back in the 90s.  The set list from Danforth is here, and here is the set list from this weekend.  They are broadly similar sets, though this time around they played several new songs, not even on an album!  In both cases, they played a lot off of Such Ferocious Beauty, and indeed the Danforth set was sort of a CD-release party.  In 2023, they played "Murder, Tonight, in the Trailer Park" and "Walkin' After Midnight."  This concert they played "Working on a Building," "'Cause Cheap is How I Feel" and "Fuck, I Hate the Cold" (so appropriate).  Combining the two concerts into one super live set would be incredible.  I have to track down the video I took from Danforth, but I should have it somewhere.  In both cases, Margo was drinking tea constantly, but her voice was fine under the circumstances.  I probably don't need to see them again, though never say never.  I would like to see Bruce Cockburn one more time, particularly if he brings a full band and it isn't just a solo show (as good as that was).

Sunday was generally smoother, though I got a bit of a late start going over to the gym.  I also spent a bit too much time looking for hardware over at Home Depot.  I didn't get back with the groceries until 1:20 (and somehow I didn't have the hamburger buns, which either got left at the store or perhaps fell out on the trek back).  Given that I obviously can't bike, as no bike lanes are truly cleared, and the Distillery is in this weird pocket with terrible transit service from the East End, I had to cab it.  I just cannot wait for it to warm up a bit and the roads to clear.  There have been a few times I skipped going down to Jimmie Simpson for the same reason, i.e. I can't bear taking 40 minutes to get somewhere on transit that would take 10-15 minutes on a bike.

Witch is a much stronger play than Mischief, though I still had a few issues with it.  I think they deliberately blurred the line between Edmonton (as a dukedom of some sort in old England) and the witch being from First Nations rural Edmonton.  That's probably mostly my spin, but the set did push me in that direction.  I think the script probably needed to give the witch a bit more to do to establish why the community thought she had any powers at all.  Did she ever heal anyone?  But overall, the conflicting needs of the characters were much stronger (and a bit of a lesson for me).  I am not entirely sure why they thought Frank should at least partially reciprocate Cuddy's barely suppressed romantic interest.  That made no sense to me.  Also, the extended (Morris) dance sequence after the explosive confrontation between Cuddy and Frank was way too long and self-indulgent.  I tuned out of that completely.  I kind of thought that Elizabeth's desire to tear it all down and start over was perhaps referring to the horrors of WWI and even moreso WWII, but that seems an extremely long wait, based on when the play was ostensibly set.  And I don't think the final, final scene worked (or even made much sense), but otherwise it was a strong piece and certainly worth checking out (whereas Mischief really needed a thorough rewrite).  I'm generally able to get through concerts and plays without too much coughing, though the Morris dance scene really tested my powers to stay the cough (and really was so unnecessary...).

I didn't have quite as much time as I had hoped at work, but I did get one thing done, then I went over to the Well.  I've been wanting decent Thai food for some time (and Thai Room was closed by the time the Cowboy Junkies set ended).  So I picked up something to go, and then suffered through a very slow streetcar trip (particularly on College) until I got to Dovercourt for the Warm Company reading.  I think next time I'll try to eat before getting there, as several people commented on how I had the only decent food in the place.  Oh well.  I hadn't actually eaten lunch and was pretty hungry by that point.

I had a chance to talk a bit more to Jamie, who is planning on directing (if I can improve the script enough), as well as Sam who would like to take the lead role, but isn't entirely sure he is up to it.  I liked most of the scripts though the first one was a bit too cliched.  My piece got some huge laughs, as the cast really sold the piece.  And at the moment the start is by far the strongest part of the script.  It's almost a bit of a problem, as it is quite tempting to leave things as they are and not put in the work to hone the script.  Nonetheless, it was great getting that positive feedback, and I think it makes it that much more likely they will start taking more of my pieces in the future.  I didn't make quite enough connections as I could have (I didn't have my cards with me), but I definitely laid the groundwork for next month.  Someone else asked if they could shift the date (as it conflicts with the Oscars), but they said no.  A bit unfortunate, as there was another concert I had hoped to go to, but this is more important, so I will be back with them in March.  Jane Smythe has agreed to come on board as well, probably as Abby, so I have even more motivation to get this done well.

So on the whole a good, though extremely cold, weekend.  Let's see what this week brings...

Feb. Reading

I'll start off with an announcement of interest only to me and that is I have finished booking all the out-of-town travel I am expecting for the near future.  Of course, work might take me somewhere (and in fact we just won more work in Calfornia).  I don't really want to travel to California at the moment, but I would be open to traveling west to Vancouver, as they are close to 20 degrees warmer than we are at the moment.  (This extended deep freeze is really bringing me down, including the fact that I can't shake this cough.)

I've had tickets to see Angela Hewitt in Ottawa for a while now, and I finally got around to booking the Via tickets and a hotel in Byward Market.  This should be fun.  I'm expecting to bring Nabokov's Ada, or Ardor on the train.  Then I am off to see Shaw's Heartbreak Hotel at the Shaw Festival in August.  I believe this is the only Shaw production they are putting on.  Last year, I was on the fence on seeing Major Barbara.  (I heard that the production in 2012 or so was much stronger.)  However, it was literally impossible to find a weekend matinee where the bus actually ran.  Such bad scheduling.  There were still several dates that I would have considered this summer, but the bus didn't run.  However, I did find a date in August that worked.  I read recently that the Shaw Festival is hoping to coordinate with Harbourfront and bring some Shaw productions to Toronto.  I'm all in favour of that, even if they probably will mostly bring the musicals over, which don't have a lot of interest for me.

As it turns out, this is going to be a major Stratford season in terms of what I am trying to catch.  I'm seeing three plays with my wife on one weekend (perhaps ironically right after Fringe has ended, so I won't be able to pick up any more material from our stay at a BnB).  I was a bit surprised when she told me she wanted to see Death of a Salesman and Othello and then probably Waiting for Godot.  I hadn't really planned on seeing Godot, as I just saw a good production at Coal Mine.  However, Paul Gross is in it, and I believe it is the only time he is acting at Stratford this summer.  Anyway, then I go back in Sept. for a long day to catch Saturday, Sunday, Monday by De Filippo and The Tao of the World, which is a modern version of The Way of the World, but set in Hong Kong.  It sounds interesting at any rate.  I have a few longer books including Skvorecky's The Bride of Texas and maybe Vanity Fair that I might take along on the bus ride(s) down.  I am going to skip Midsummer's Night's Dream and The Tempest, as they just put them on too often.

Anyway, I wasn't expecting it, but Murakami's The City and Its Uncertain Walls turned up at the library.  I thought I had paused the hold for longer.  I decided I will hang onto it, but probably not get started on it until I have read a few other books, mostly likely Faulkner's The Wild Palms, O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find and McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (so a bit of a sweep through Southern literature).  But before I can get to this, I have some poetry collections to quickly read and return, as well as two novels by Slovak authors (including Mothers and Truckers!), which have to go back to Robarts soon.  So the Murakami might be waiting for a while.  Also, I didn't think it would turn up in time, but I am being sent a copy of Kaveh Akbar's Martyr!, which is the book our work book club is discussing in Feb., so I guess I'll also read that once it turns up.

I had tried to renew my copy of Jean-Baptiste Fressoz's More and More and More, which is an extremely depressing non-fiction account of how we never have managed any energy transitions nor stopped using coal or even wood as fuel, so the hope that we will suddenly start using renewables (and stop global warming in its tracks) is a complete fantasy.  We're clearly going to break through the 3 degree mark.  I really do regret that environmentalists haven't made any more traction and the world we are leaving for our children is going to be a fairly dreadful one as these bills come due.  I can only say that I have avoided owning a car or driving for most of my adult life, I stick to a vegetarian diet (which also is less carbon intensive), and I try to do most long-distance travel by train rather than flying.  And my work has generally been to support transit projects, though I have not worked exclusively in that domain.  Someone else had a hold on the book, so I couldn't renew it.  I'm skimming it right now and should be able to return it tomorrow, only a day late.  I also need to start reading a book on megaprojects, which I agreed to review for a journal.  

So certainly a fair bit of reading on deck for Feb., which will have to be balanced against revising my Fringe play.

Edit (02/08): I'm making decent progress through the poetry volumes, though I really need to focus a bit more on this megaprojects book.  I think this time around, my favorite poet has been Karen Solie.  She has several poems involving transportation (and my objective in reading this much poetry is at least ostensibly to finish up my transportation poetry anthology).  In her Griffin-winning collection Pigeon, there is a poem about a rough bus ride called "Medicine Hat Calgary One-Way" that I liked a fair bit (and would include if the anthology ever gets off the ground...).  I have made two extremely frustrating trips to try to look over Konchan's The New Alphabets at Fisher Rare Book Library.  I'm at the point I don't really care much any more.  If there is a Thurs. where I am coming up to see something at Koerner Hall (like an Esprit concert at the end of March), I might try again, but my interest is really low at this point.

Updates (Movies, Concerts and Fringe)

Last week I saw Buñuel's Viridiana.  There were moments I thought were very interesting or very creepy or both.  It was fairly obvious that her bringing a veritable raft of the wretched to stay on her uncle's estate was going to end badly.  It's only surprising that it didn't end worse for her.  (As far as I can tell, we are supposed to assume that the attempted rape was thwarted.)  Anyway, the scene with the paupers lined up just like the Last Supper was pretty daring, and you can certainly see why the film was banned in several Catholic countries.

I'm not sure how much I actually enjoyed the film (as a lot of it was stressful waiting for the paupers to turn on her), but I'm not sorry I saw it.  The scene where her crown of thorns falls out of her suitcase is classic!  I have another couple of weeks before the next Buñuel over at TIFF.

I already mentioned that I enjoyed Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, except for the portrayal of Bruce Lee.  I haven't entirely decided, but I might go see Reservoir Dogs at Carlton towards the end of the month.  I've never seen it, and while I don't generally enjoy ultra violent movies, I'm sure it's worth seeing.  I briefly debated going to see The Hateful Eight again, probably also at Carlton, but it didn't work out for some reason.  I did see Pulp Fiction there not so long ago, though my notes says this might have been back in August.  Good lord, how time flies!  I would like to see Jackie Brown again, which is perhaps the most enjoyable of his films to watch (for me), so I'll keep my eyes out for that.

I'm scheduled to see Rohmer's La Collectionneuse, De Palma's Blow Out and Wong Kar-wai's 2046 this month. I'd be up to try to catch Jarmusch's Father Mother Sister Brother, but I may have already missed its run at TIFF, and I don't think it made it out to The Fox or the Revue.  It's not my highest priority, but I'll see if it turns up somewhere close to me at some point.

It was quite overdue, and I finally found the time to watch Godard's Masculin Feminin.  I liked it far more than I expected.  I think it's a combination of the humour working with the material much better than in Breathless, and probably also I just like Jean-Pierre Léaud better as leading man; it was particularly droll when the girls told him to turn that trash off (when he put classical music on), and later he said his favorite musician was Bach.  (I wrote a play ages ago where the male lead wasn't much interested in music past Bach...)  I definitely wish this had been in the massive Godard box set.  I may still part with this box set (if I could find anyone to pay me even part of what it is worth), though I definitely need to watch Une Femme est Une Femme, though I expect I won't like this as much (it sounds like it might be more like Vivre sa vie, which was ok but not amazing).  Anyway, I kicked the idea around for a while and finally ordered a copy of Masculin Feminin, though it is being sent to my step-mother's house first, so I probably won't have it in hand for some time...

In terms of concerts, I saw a great concert by Tafelmusik where they did Bach's Brandenburg Concertos 1-4 on Sunday.  I cut it a bit close, and ended up running (in the snow!) and just catching the 72 bus.  Had I missed that bus, I would likely have been a few minutes late.  For some reason, they rewarded all the subscribers with their 1994 recording of all the Brandenburg Concertos.  I have a mini-subscription, so I also got the CDs.  Sweet!  I think I might already have a copy of this, but I'm sure I can find someone who would want it.

Then last night, I went and saw a percussion concert as part of the UT New Music Festival.  The first half were pieces by Vivian Fung and the second half were percussion pieces by Morton Feldman.  I didn't like the final piece, as it was too long and monotonous, but the other pieces were good.  Then last night I saw 3 pieces by Vivian Fung, including a very virtuosic flute concerto.  I left at the intermission, as I didn't really want to see the Unsuk Chin piece.  However, it made no difference in terms of getting home early.  The TTC was terrible.  Line 2 was shut down between St. George and Chester!  So I decided to try to take the streetcar.  As I made my move, they said that Line 2 service had been restored, but I wasn't able to jump off the train.  It might not have actually mattered, as there was suddenly another announcement about the security alarm being pulled on a train.  Definitely a bad night on the subway.  But it wasn't much better waiting for the streetcar at Queen's Park.  It was brutally cold out,* and the streetcar took forever to arrive.  When we finally got to the East End, we got stuck behind a very slow garbage truck around Degrassi, and of course the streetcar couldn't maneuver around it.  So a bad time getting home. 

On Friday, I am back to see a student orchestra at Koerner Hall.  They are doing yet another Vivian Fung piece, as well as Tchaikovsky Symphony 6.  Then I see Cowboy Junkies on Sat., which will be an interesting bookend, as I saw Sudan Archives the previous Sunday at The Great Hall.

It doesn't look like I am seeing any TSO concerts in Feb., though I went to see them three times in Jan., so it balances out.  I have two Soundstreams concerts, including one at Hugh's Room.  I also want to get over to Hirut a couple of times and the Rex two or three times in Feb.  Indeed, I might move my ticket at Coal Mine to a different day so I can see Gary Smulyan a second time.  I haven't entirely decided, and I don't want to then find out that those dates at the Rex are sold out.

At any rate, I probably can use this time productively.  I finally got feedback from a few people I sent my script to.  They basically agreed with me it was too talky.  The overall idea was ok, but there wasn't enough conflict driving the action, and the whole thing needed a lot of tightening up.  That said, one actor is leaning towards signing on for the main part, and I have landed someone who will direct the play, if I make significant improvements to the script.  While I have fond memories of this first draft, I agree it really could blossom more if I put in the work and don't get all defensive about what I have written and resist making these changes.  But still, it definitely means almost completely rewriting the piece, when it was only last Sat. that I got the whole thing down and formatted properly for the first time.  Still, I want to see if I can create something I can really be proud of.  

So that's the main news, and I really need to head off to bed now. 

* It looks like we have a solid seven more days of this terrible cold weather, so none of the damn snow will melt, and there isn't a chance in hell I am going to bike in this weather (which means I am definitely getting out of shape).  This has been a really bad winter, weather-wise at any rate.