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...

Quick Takes, Early 2026 Edition

Well, the Orange One is just determined to keep himself in the news at all costs, even if this leads to almost certain defeat in the House in the midterms (though obviously he will create so many crises that he will try to postpone the elections -- this is so clearly part of the madness).  (I'm talking about Greenland, but it really could be anything he gets up to...)  I can't even begin to list all the institutions that have completely let us down, but the Supreme Court is in a unique position to end a small part of the madness by ruling that tariffs can't be changed unilaterally by the President for clearly political reasons.  They have had two chances so far to issue their ruling and have punted both times.  Justice Roberts, such a pure specimen of political cowardice.

Anyway, let me try to rinse the foul taste out of my mouth....

I finished Mahfouz's The Beggar.  I have really liked most and been indifferent at worst to his many novels, but this is the first one I truly disliked.  Thank goodness it wasn't the first Mahfouz I ever read.  I've chatted a bit elsewhere why I dislike it so much, so I will refrain here.  I am just about finished with The Tale of the Missing Man, which I don't care much for either.  I think in both cases it is the fact that the main characters are having these deep existential-level mid-life crises that they simply surrender to, tearing apart their families in the process, which I object to so much.  Could they not at least try to pull themselves together a bit?  Of the two, The Tale of the Missing Man at least is more interesting, and I can relate to this man's agony when earlier in life he is horrified to find out that his beloved "sister" smokes (and later on he finds out she drinks as well, which is too much for him as a practicing Muslim (at this point in the story) and she suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her uncle).  I still remember that when I was a very, very young man at university, I saw one of the students at East Quad (whom I happened to have a crush on naturally) smoke a cigarette expertly in a student production.  At that point, I realized she operated at a different level than me and she was out of my league, and I never really tried to get to know her better after that.  Foolish me...  (Though I am sure she was out of my league.)

I also am nearly done with Heather O'Neill's Valentine in Montreal, which was written as a serial novel in the manner of Dickens, though Heather avoided having any really dark or troubling episodes in this book.  Each chapter takes place at a different Montreal metro stop.  It's more fun than the other two certainly, though it is a little too light, which is clearly by design.

At any rate, I'll need to decide what I am reading next.  It is somewhat inconvenient that most of the books I am considering next are in multi-novel anthologies, like Maxwell's So Long, See You Tomorrow, Faulkner's The Wild Palms, O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find and even Joyce's Dubliners, which I am considering throwing into the mix.  But there are a few stand-alone novels, and maybe I should focus on the shorter ones, like Gide's The Immoralist, Offill's Weather and Russell Smith's Self-Care, which I can put a hold on at the library and see when it comes in.  I'm also reading a depressing book about energy use and climate change called More and More and More, though I am not sure I need to read this in full and can just skim it.  I also agreed to read and review a book about mega-projects, so I should start in on that soon as well.  And I have a ridiculous number of poetry books checked out, so I am working through those as well. 

I've had another look through the good folder that was recovered off of the bad hard drive.*  It looks like I do have all visits to 401 Richmond salvaged, which is great, and even the TPL reading that Souvankham Thammavongsa gave. (It turns out she is left-handed!)

My back is feeling better, though it is still far from ideal.  I've been able to keep up my visits to the gym and swimming, though I found the Regent Park pool overcrowded and completely intolerable on my last visit.  I only got in somewhere between 12-15 laps (I was so frustrated I lost count!) when my normal workout is 24-25.  The problem is when I have really overstuffed weekends, which is nearly every weekend, Regent Park has the best lane swim times and the others just don't work, esp. when the weather is such that I can't bike.  Still, I will need to figure something out, either get there the moment the lanes open or push my way into the fast lanes despite my issues with them.  And to the extent possible, try to make it work at Jimmie Simpson or Matty Eckler pools.  I perhaps can do swimming on Sunday and then head over to Koerner Hall this weekend.  Anyway, I'll figure something out.

I've been seeing a lot of movies lately.  I saw Pan's Labyrinth, which was good but very dark.  Broadcast News last night, which was quite good and had a somewhat surprising ending.  I thought it was a bit refreshing that the Bonnie Hunter stuck to her guns and her principles (even though I wouldn't have made the choices she made) and yet she wasn't made to regret this decision and found happiness and presumably fulfillment in her own way.  I'm off to see La Notte tonight and will probably stick around to see No Other Choice after that, so it will be quite a long night.  Then I see one last Naruse film at TIFF on the weekend.  I have not sat down and figured out Feb. yet.  There are a few concerts at the UT New Music Festival and a few plays I haven't booked tickets to.  I've also figured out Stratford and Shaw, so I should book that, including a night at a BnB in Stratford.

Speaking of this (and really burying the lede) I had my number pulled in the satellite Fringe lottery, and my play, "At Home with the Bards," is going to be at Alumnae Theatre during the Toronto Fringe this summer!  So exciting and a bit terrifying.  I really need to just sit down and get the rest transcribed.  If it is a good enough script, I have a potential lead on an actor to play the main part and then a director.  But none of this will happen if I can't get it down on paper and cleaned up a bit.  Also, they have agreed to put on the first part at the successor to Toronto Cold Reads** in Feb.!  So lots of good things happening if I could just focus...

Other things on my mind are that I finally got Toby over to the vet to be neutered.  He is so sad in his cone, which comes off on Monday.  He actually managed to get it off and was not happy when I found the cone and wrestled it back on.

I actually managed to get his sister, Rho, to the vet yesterday, which is always an ordeal, as it is just so hard to catch her.  The idea that I will need to catch her 3 times when she is spayed (for the surgery and then two follow-up visits) is a bit upsetting, though I do imagine it will be easier to catch her with the cone on...

The weather is really getting me down, though it is not going to be nearly as cold today, though it will probably snow.  The deep chill settles back in this weekend when I am going to be all over the city with my various cultural activities.  Anyway, I should break now and back to work and then get this play transcribed.

 

* I think what is missing is confined to Gary Shteyngart's TPL visit, a trip to The Power Plant (this can be skipped but I do want to take photos of the murals just north of The Power Plant, and trips to MoCA (already well covered) and the new exhibit at the AGO.  I can recreate the AGO trip, though not the photos of my son in front of a few paintings.  And probably two nights at The Rex.  And then 1.5 shows of Robyn Hitchcock playing at home.  So it's certainly frustrating that this is gone, but it definitely could have been much worse.

** After talking with several people at the cold reads thing on Sun., it's pretty clear that very few people read the email and signed up for the satellite lottery, which helps explain why I got in.  Well, it's their loss.  But more seriously, this may be the last time there is so little competition, so I definitely need to make the most of my opportunity, which means I really need to get this down on paper.  (And double-check deadlines for paying rental fees, etc.)

Rescuing the Writing

One thing that I have been diligent about is copying the scans of all my hand-written notes (written mostly while at the Rex or Jazz Bistro or Hirut*) into several locations.  However, I still keep coming across notebooks that I haven't scanned, and I think the plan this week is to pull all the notebooks together and see what has been scanned and what hasn't.  (On the whole this is a good thing, though more effort...)

I recently came across the pages for The Trip (the bus ride from hell from Atlanta to Detroit), and I definitely want to type that up.  I do wonder if I wrote the ending out somewhere else, as it doesn't seem to be a proper ending.  But certainly the majority is scanned.  I also found the hand-written notes for Dharma Donuts, but this I probably won't bother with, as I have typed that up (and then decided it needed a severe overhaul anyway).  One of the more annoying things is I had typed up something (I think I called it Parkdale Queens or something), and I sent it off to SFYS but at a time they were using Google submission form, rather than me just emailing a PDF.  And I simply cannot find the file, which is so incredibly weird.  And then the folks at Assembly just gave up on running SFYS and stopped returning my emails (where I was just asking if they could flip that file back to me).  Given that this piece (about a band that broke up) is something I wanted to share with Skye Wallace, it is perhaps my top "missing" piece.  

I had thought I had scanned some of the early, early pieces of my planner epic, but I think beyond the very first scene, I hadn't done that.  So I scanned that again (almost 20 pages of dialogue and notes!).  Clearly, compiling this and putting it into some kind of order is a high priority.  It's almost like a puzzle piece now, just going through what is scanned and how it is all supposed to fit together.

The single highest priority, however, is to find all the pieces of the Stratford BnB piece.  I believe that is all scanned, just not labelled very well.  I have even transcribed the 2nd part (and the 1st part is cleaned up and typed out, which is great).  So I probably just need to transcribe the ending and get this whole thing into shape.  I find out tomorrow evening if I am going to the Fringe or not.  Then I will see if I can locate and finish the Parkdale Queens piece, and then maybe quickly pound out The Trip, then go back to the planner epic.  If I ever finish this, I might go back to the piece about living in Toronto in the 90s and the immigration struggles my character had (in a parallel life where I did decide to try to stay on in Canada by marrying a lesbian...).  It feels like this is all a lot of work, but at least it is generally emotionally rewarding doing this creative writing (and now trying to actually do something with it now that Toronto Cold Reads has returned).

 

* Last Sat. I had planned on seeing Pat LaBarbara at Hirut.  I was there about 15 minutes early (the TTC was actually somewhat smooth for once), but the place was completely full.  I thought I saw a spot at the back table where I usually sit, but the guy at the door claimed that the only thing I could do was grab a stool and sit by the door.  I mean I am not that worried about comfort (and had a pretty uncomfortable spot at the Rex the week before for the Mike Murley gig), but I had wanted to eat the Ethiopian food and put my phone down someplace and try to write.  I didn't see how I could do any of that sitting at a stool by the door, so I didn't bother.  I ate at Thai Room and went home, feeling pretty deflated.  (I guess I would have taken the stool if Neil Swainson had been on bass, but it was someone else.)  There is a small chance I would come by on Jan 21 after La Notte at The Fox, though I could only catch the second set.  I'm not entirely sure that is worth it, but I'll see how I feel at the time.  Then there is a Mike Murley show with Reg Schawger and Neil Swainson in mid Feb.  I guess for that one I will show up at 7 (an hour early) to make sure I get in!

I actually probably do need to book my ticket for Le Notte at least.  I just found out that Mulholland Drive at Paradise tomorrow is sold out(!), but I will probably drop by anyway to see if they have a rush line like the Revue does.

Best Theatre of 2025

This list will have almost everything I saw in 2025 unless I really didn't care for it (both the plot and the acting/direction), and there were a few things like that unfortunately.  I think I only left in the middle of David French's Leaving Home, but I probably should have bailed on Job (at Coal Mine) and Winter Solstice (though this was all in one act, making it hard to do.)  However, I have cut back on the Fringe listings, focusing here on what stood out for me.  I realize that isn't entirely consistent, but I just see so much at the Fringe most summers that I want to raise the bar that much more.  Most of these plays will not be coming back to Toronto any time soon, but there may still be a few SPOILERS in my commentary on the plays.

Jan

Buddies/Common Boots - Last Landscape (an almost wordless piece that was much more about the movement and setting; not really my thing but some people liked it a lot)
Talk is Free Theatre - Cock (an intense piece in a constrained space with a tug-of-war between a straight woman and a gay man over a second man)
Factory - Small Gods: The Musical (a workshopped version of a queer musical set largely in a mall)
Talk is Free - For Both Resting and Breeding (an odd piece set in someone's kitchen in the far future when gender has all but been erased)
Canada Stage - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (another intense piece, somewhat undercut by one of the leads getting ill with his replacement not entirely off-book at that point; it probably would have worked better at the Berkeley Theatre in a less gargantuan space) 

(I was supposed to see Shakespeare Bash'd The Merchant of Venice, but my performance was cancelled due to a freak blizzard and they weren't able to rebook me, which is supremely frustrating, even though this is not a play I actually enjoy...)

Feb. 

Eldritch Theatre/Red Sandcastle - The Strange and Eerie Memoirs of Billy Wuthergloom 
VideoCab - Cliff Cardinal's CBC Special
Coal Mine - People, Places & Things (depressing piece about a women finally kicking her addictions and her family being too burnt out to really care)
Canadian Stage - Fat Ham (retelling of Hamlet with a gay Hamlet who is in love with Laertes, probably the very hardest thing to believe was the Claudius character would prefer to die choking on food rather than allow Ham to perform the Heimlich maneuver.  I found myself incredibly annoyed at the way lower middle class African-Americans were portrayed as so absurdly homophobic, and this was even more blatant in A Strange Loop, which I won't even list here, as I found this trope so offensive...)
Theatre Centre - Monks (brought back by popular demand from Fringe 2024.  So odd, with a plot ostensibly about the two monks trying to find a lost donkey, including a lot of audience participation; I was glad not to have been picked.)

March

Outside the March - Performance Review (a play about the author's best and worst jobs, set in an actual coffee shop)
Crow's - Measure for Measure (basically a small troupe putting on a radio play version of Measure for Measure, with some implied side action between the actors going on)
Factory - Truck (basically about truck drivers being replaced by technology but it ends up also being about the rivalry between a union leader and an average guy driver)
Alumnae - Age of Arousal
Al Green Theatre - Cabaret

April 

Theatre Centre - Red
Crow's - A Public Display of Affection (an older gay actor's memories of gay life in Toronto in his youth)
Canadian Stage - Mahabharata Pt 1 & 2
Video Cabaret - Pochsy IV: Unplugged
Tarragon - Feast (the ending was implausible and the dig at vegetarians at the Feast at the End of the World was frankly uncalled for)

 May 

Shakespeare Bash'd - George Etherege's The Man of Mode (staged reading)
Video Cabaret - Brecht's Three Penny Opera (student production)

June 

EldritchTheatre/Red Sandcastle - Buster Canfield's Apocalyptic Miracle Show
Canadian Stage - Next Time I Die (staged reading)
Canadian Stage - You, Always by Erin Shields (a staged reading of a play going on the main stage in 2026)

July 

It looks like the only theatre I did in July was Fringe, but there was a lot of it.  Here are some of the best I saw this past summer: #1 Clown Show, Shady Arab Ladies, Jimmy Hogg: Potato King, A Canadian Explains Eurovision, The Rhinoceros Collective, The Adding Machine, Adam Bailey: My Three Deaths, Oh! I Miss the War, Mocktails on the Beach, The Perils of Being Born in the Fall, Stealing Home, Things My Dad Kept, The Sexy Pigeon Show and Milk Milk Lemonade.

The funniest show was Milk Milk Lemonade (edging out Jimmy Hogg: Potato King).  I learned the most (actual facts) from The Perils of Being Born in the Fall.  The best revival was surely The Adding Machine.  The most touching was Things My Dad Kept.

Aug.

Canadian Stage - Shakespeare in High Park: Romeo & Juliet (Juliet and her father were very well acted, but I thought Romeo was rather weak and Tybalt was just terrible)
Summerworks - Le Concierge (an interactive piece where we walked all through a school following a custodian and even cleaning some windows by the end)
Summerworks - The Chains (another hyper-interactive piece where we eventually were sorted into groups (Team Creon, Team Antigone or the Chorus) to act out a production of Antigone!)
Summerworks - Leftover Market
Stratford - Macbeth (I liked Macbeth on motorcycles better than most of the critics)
Stratford - The Winter's Tale (this is a play I simply hate, despite the fine cast, and will never see it again)
Stratford - Erin Shields's Ransacking Troy (very good but not nearly as comic overall as I had been led to expect)
Shakespeare in the Ruff @ Withrow Park - Tiff'ny of Athens (genderbent and time-shifting version of Timon of Athens; while I would like to see a proper production one of these days (I skipped out on one last year at the Theatre Centre), this actually gave me a pretty good feel for the piece)

Sept

Soulpepper - Harold Pinter's Old Times (this makes the third time I've seen this enigmatic play!)
Soulpepper - King Gilgamesh (I saw this before and decided at the last minute to get rush tickets to see it a second time on its final performance; it inspired me to actually read the Epic of Gilgamesh; this play is very faithful to the epic, which is pretty cool)
Crow's - Octet (this started strong but ended oddly, and I particularly thought the bit about the scientist (who used to heckle religious types just as Richard Dawkins did) encountering a godlike figure was inane and essentially ruined the piece for me)
Coal Mine - Beckett's Waiting for Godot (a fine performance, a bit more physical at some points than I was used to)

Oct.

Stratford - Goblins: Oedipus Rex (my second trip out to Stratford and the Goblins slayed)
Tarragon - Bremen Town
Buddies - The Green Line
Talk is Free Theatre - David Harrower's Blackbird (really hard to take a play about a pedophile who reunites with the woman he seduced when she was 13 or so!)

Nov.

Soulpepper - Jacobs-Jenkins's The Comeuppance (did not like the plot much at all, esp. the ending, but the acting was generally terrific)
George Brown @ Young Centre - Ruhl's Orlando
Crow's Kanika Ambrose's The Christmas Market (an interesting, often depressing, peek into the lives of the temporary foreign workers who keep Canadian agribusiness humming along)
Canadian Stage - Robert LePage's Far Side of the Moon (I saw this years ago in Vancouver with LePage in the role (!), but he wasn't performing this time around; the spectacle is good but the plot is wafer-thin and not really at all memorable)
Coal Mine - Fulfillment Centre (my main beef with this play is that the finance has uprooted her life and yet seems to have no feelings at all for her partner, and maybe even more to the point, two of the characters have extremely troubled lives but the root cause seems personal and not due to the pressures of capitalism, which is what one would have expected from this play; I thought the ending was incredibly weak)
EldritchTheatre/Red Sandcastle - Little Library of the Damned
Icarus @ Theatre Centre -  Dennis Kelly's DNA (dark comedy about teens more or less re-enacting Lord of the Flies but in an English suburb) 
Shakespeare Bash'd - Middleton's Women Beware Women (staged reading)
Alumnae Theatre - New Ideas Festival Week 2 (some good short pieces here with the standout piece about two women talking in a doctor's office before one woman is about to get news if she has cancer)

Dec
 
Factory Theatre - Public Consumption (this conveyed the horrors of the internet much more effectively than Job, which I felt was too gimmicky)
RedOne Collective - The Dishwashers by Morris Panych (the very welcome return of RedOne Collective, this play is staged in an actual restaurant; while I didn't care for the very last scene, overall this was quite good)
Soulpepper/Bad Hats - Narnia (a fun musical for all ages)
Crow's - Michael Healey's Rogers v. Rogers (a one-man show with Ted Rogers and his wife and children all played by one actor, going into the details of the Rogers' takeover of Shaw Communications)

I saw roughly 80 plays, musicals or staged readings in 2025, which is not shabby considering reviewing isn't actually my profession.  

The best spectacle was The Mahabharata Pt 1 & 2 at Canadian Stage.  I did find that nearly all the plays had something that kept them from being truly amazing, often some annoying wrinkle in the plot that didn't hold up very well.  Looking over the whole list, I think probably the best play was Ransacking Troy at Stratford, followed by Rogers v. Rogers at Crow's and then Goblins: Oedipus.  However, Measure for Measure essentially done as a radio play (@ Crow's) was very good.  Red at Theatre Centre was also quite good, though it suffers a bit from the fact I've seen it several times before, including on Broadway! 

I was heartened by the return of RedOne Collective, as well as a new company starting up called Icarus Theatre.  And I didn't go to all their shows (as I just am not that interested in Tracy Letts's Bug), but King Black Box is another up and coming company that I need to keep an eye on.  For the most part, the best payoffs of the year were from these smaller theatres or events at Fringe and Summerworks.

But to me the best news of all is that Toronto Cold Reads started up in a new incarnation in Dec., and they have accepted my Stratford piece for either Jan. or Feb.  So that is exciting and gives me more motivation to keep working on my own creative writing!

I will say that given the somewhat lukewarm or hostile reception I gave to some of the critical darlings of the season (especially The Welkin), I am starting to rethink how much theatre I really ought to go to, as I don't seem to enjoy it as much as I used to.  Or maybe I am just feeling bruised at the very high ticket prices of most of these shows (and indeed there were a few shows I decided just weren't worth the $60+ ticket prices) when I often have mixed feelings about the experience.

One thing that stood out to me is that playwrights who decided to use their soapbox to engage in "both sideism" really lost me, and I lost all respect for what they were trying to do.  This was only a fairly small element of Feast where there was some completely decadent Feast for the End of Time where all kinds of endangered species were being eaten by these rich, nihilistic assholes, but somehow the author had to claim that vegetarians would also be there eating rare, ancient grains.  It's such a stupid attempt to knock vegetarians and vegans off their moral high ground (as not eating meat (at the levels indulged in by western societies) is objectively better for the health of the planet than eating (so much) meat).  But this is only a very minor (sour) note in a fairly long (too long) play.  The bit about the anti-religious zealots (like Dawkins) being just as toxic on the internet (as believers of various persuasions) might have some validity, but the way it was introduced in Octet is far from ideal.  Having the scientist dropped into a lengthy (non-musical!) scenario where he encounters a godlike being that his scientific rationality can't explain (and thus he is forced to admit he might have been wrong in the past) is beyond stupid and really made me dislike the whole piece.

Day 3 of the Fringe

To celebrate Day 3 of the Fringe, I saw 3 shows back to back to back.  That wasn't intentional on my part, but I really wanted to check out what was going on at Video Cabaret (and to see anything I wanted to see there at one time), and the timing worked out well.  

This is the only official Fringe venue east of the Don.  I was told Crow's just wanted too much money.  I'm trying to remember if Soulpepper was part of Fringe before.  I definitely remember Tarragon and TPM being much more central to Fringe in the past.  (And I'm quite sure the Fringe patio was much further west, first in Mirvish Village, and then after that was torn up, either at the skating rink area behind the library at Bathurst or near Trazac.  Now it is tucked away in the Distillery and frankly is absurdly tiny...)  Interestingly, TPM pulled out of Fringe, but then someone came along and put up a whole bunch of musicals there and linked them back to Fringe.

Some years there have been several site specific shows in the East End.  I didn't notice that there were that many this time around, but I didn't look that hard either.  (It looks like there is one show up on Danforth near Chester, which I might check out.)

The shows I was seeing were #1 Clown Comedy, Very Shady Arab Ladies, and Jimmy Hogg: The Potato King.  

I was able to bike over from work just after 6.  I had time to get over to stop in at Queen Books (sadly the book I was looking for had sold out), Craig's cookies and then got in line.

I happened to run into Nina Kaye, who was one of the writers of #1 Clown Comedy.  Our paths crossed a bit at Sing-for-Your-Supper and Toronto Cold Reads, though we weren't super close.  In terms of other celebrity sightings, I ended up sitting next to Peter Tabuns, who is MPP for the district.  (He actually came out to my Fringe show in 2018, as it was one of the very few shows in the East End that year.)  

After the #1 Clown Comedy, I had a chance to chat with Nina a bit more and one of her friends.  We talked a bit about the fact that Video Cabaret really isn't doing the History of the Long Boats any longer and may or may not return to that.  It's really a shame that they never got the funding to record the full series in a proper way, though I imagine they may have archival copies.  We stopped in briefly at a pub, but I had to get back right away.  I mentioned that I was thinking of doing something like Sing-for-Your-Supper East, and she thought that was a great idea (though it means I now need to follow through).  We agreed to get back in touch after Fringe was over.

The #1 Clown Comedy was very funny and got positive reviews.  It looks like there are 4 or so shows left, so go check it out.

I had mixed feelings about Very Shady Arab Ladies.  I was surprised Glenn Sumi liked it a fair bit.  I liked bits of it, but some parts dragged, particularly the running around in the underground tunnels.  And the jazz-playing cops were an interesting touch.  What this reminded me of the most was one of George F. Walker's stranger plays (Beautiful City).

I had basically an hour between this play and Jimmy Hogg, so I did go over to Eat BKK Thai around the corner.  I have not been disappointed at this location, though the one on Bloor near Bathurst once served me a terrible meal, and I haven't been back.

It's good that I managed to eat something, as long stretches of Jimmy Hogg's show were about food preparation, and how he would never again date a woman that turned up late, resulting in spoiled risotto.  This was quite polished and a very entertaining show.  It is basically sold out, though there is a good chance they will add a Sunday show as a Patron's Pick, so keep your eyes out.

However, the evening was definitely spoiled a bit when I picked up my bike and realized someone had nicked the front light.  Come on, Toronto.  Do better!!!

Best Theatre of 2024

I have to admit, I didn't do a great job of keeping track of, and certainly not reviewing, what I saw this year, but I did see a lot of theatre, most of which was good or even great.  Let's see what I can reconstruct for 2024.

Jan.

i am your spaniel by We Quit Theatre @ Buddies.  (This was very good, but I did not like the other two plays put on by We Quit Theatre.)
Better Living by George F. Walker @ Alumnae
Diana and Casey @ Soulpepper.  (It was ok, but not really my thing.  I found many elements of the play to be predictable and/or emotionally manipulative.  A few critics put this on their best of lists.)
Two Noble Kinsmen by Shakespeare @ Shakespeare Bash'd (A good production of a minor play.)

Feb.

MacBeth: A Tale Told by an Idiot @  Eldritch Theatre/Red Sandcastle Theatre

(I saw something else at Theatre Centre in Feb., but didn't care much for it.)

March

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard @ Mirvish

April

The Inheritance @ Canadian Stage (Technically, Part 1 was in March...)
Staged reading of The Knight of the Burning Pestle - Shakespeare Bash'd
shaniqua in abstraction by bahia watson @ Crow's Theatre
Mad Madge @ Theatre Centre
El Terremoto @ Tarragon
Huff by Cliff Cardinal @ Crow's Theatre (This almost didn't happen because he had to cancel a performance, but I was able to catch one the next day.)

(I actually traveled out to Hamilton to see Lobby Hero, but it was so cliched, not a good play at all.)

May

First Métis Man of Odesa @ Soulpepper
The Wrong Bashir by Zahida Rahemtulla @ Crow's Theatre
Seven methods of killing kylie jenner @ Obsidian/Crow's Theatre (I didn't love this, and it would have spoken much more to my son who is deep into social media, but it had it's moments)

June

Age is a Feeling by Haley McGee @ Soulpepper (I liked this so much I went back a second time and saw nearly all of the segments I missed on my first viewing.)

July

Toronto Fringe - I liked Gringas (aside from the ending), James Roque in Champorado, the improv show Before We Go, All of Our Parents are Immigrants, and You Lost Me.

Aug.

Hamlet @ High Park/Canadian Stage (The acting was terrific, though the director's vision for the play was completely warped and made this an inferior experience.)

Sept.

Fierce by George F. Walker @ Alumnae
London Assurance @ Stratford
Twelfth Night @ Stratford
Girls Unwanted by George F. Walker @ King Black Box (Amazing.  Probably the single best thing I saw in 2024.)
Infinite Life by Annie Baker @ Coal Mine (This really dragged, and the plot was unusually thin even by Baker's standards.)

Oct.

1939 @ Canadian Stage (This was ok, though I couldn't believe how much attention they gave to the priest's flatulence.  I mean really?)
Who's Live is it Anyway @ Massey Hall (the improvising was amazing, but the seats were terrible)
This Feels Like the End @ Buddies/Toronto Fringe (I just couldn't get past the premise that the sun would disappear but plants would keep growing and the moon would still be in the sky.  In general, the acting was solid but the ending was completely confusing.  So I guess not a success but still interesting.)
Something Rotten @ Stratford (The bus ride was totally horrible, but we made it just in time and the musical was terrific!)
Goblin Macbeth @ Tarragon (Also terrific.)
Wonderful Joe by puppeteer Ronnie Burkett @ St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts (it is astonishing how much emotion Burkett conveys through his puppetry)

Nov.

Staged reading of Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy - Shakespeare Bash'd
I Don't Even Miss You @ Factory (Again, the SF premise was completely implausible and really took me out of the play.  Too bad...  And I really thought the talk-back would focus much more on environmental disaster and theatre and instead it was almost entirely about artistic process and making art as a couple.  Sigh.)
A Case for the Existence of God @ Coal Mine
Interior Design @ Tarragon
Playing Shylock @ Canadian Stage
Dead Broke by Will King @ Theatre Centre (I didn't feel this ghost story was sufficiently grounded, and the "internal rules" of the play kept shifting)
McNeal by Ayad Akhtar @ Lincoln Center, NYC (The main reason to see this was to catch Robert Downey, Jr. in the flesh, though Andrea Martin was also quite amusing.)
The Bidding War @ Crow's Theatre
Erased @ Theatre Passe Muraille (This piece had very strong connections to Caryl Churchill's Far Away.  I didn't see a single review that pointed this out, which seems bizarre.)

(I was supposed to see Timon of Athens at Theatre Centre, but I just had too many things to deal with before my trip to NYC and DC; I ended up forfeiting the ticket, which is extremely rare for me.)

Dec.

Big Stuff by Baram and Snieckus @ Crow's Theatre  (Very moving show about grieving for lost relatives and having trouble letting go of things that are reminders of them.  Suggestions from the audience are woven into the narrative.)
The Master Plan by Michael Healey @ Crow's Theatre/Soulpepper (I managed to score rush tickets to this remount of The Master Plan at Soulpepper.  Almost the entire cast returned, though Healey himself joined the cast and plays a tree!)
It Sees You When You're Sleeping by Phil Rickaby @ Red Sandcastle (A creepy cautionary tale on why parents should avoid bringing Elf on the Shelf into their homes.)

The single best play was Walker's Girls Unwanted, but Age is a Feeling, Goblin Macbeth and Big Stuff were also terrific, as was The Master Plan, though this was my second time 'round seeing it, so there wasn't the same element of surprise.  The best (and quite possibly the only) musical of the year was Something Rotten, which I saw at Stratford.  I just don't have the energy right now to do more fulsome reviews, but I do think I managed to track down pretty much everything I saw in 2024, with a few strategic omissions...

Sing-for-Your-Supper showed up for 3 months or so at Assembly Theatre (I made it twice), then the new custodians got burned out and pulled the plug right around the time of the Toronto Fringe (which was a pretty solid season, btw).  They may restart in 2025, but I'm getting a little tired of being jerked around and may just go off and do my own thing to have some sort of creative outlet.  Mostly, I just need to find the time to write down everything I've jotted down while at the Rex, and then I suppose I can worry about what to do with it all.  Not the worst problem in the world to have...

Slow-Start Weekend

I suppose in the scheme of things, I wasn't so slow off the mark Saturday.  I actually was up doing a few things, but I had decided that I wanted to go swimming at the Regent Park pool, since it has the hot tub, which I thought might help break up the junk in my lungs a bit more.  I don't feel all that bad, but I am having some trouble sleeping, which then means I drag a bit throughout the rest of the day.

I ended up setting out around 11:30, but I stopped off at the library first, so I could pick up a book called Gods of Angkor.  One of the more interesting things at the Royal Alberta Museum was the main exhibit on Angkor Wat, which was recently extended through Jan. 2025.  I've seen a few smaller exhibits on Angkor Wat, but this was the most extensive I have seen in person.  I have to admit, I wasn't terribly impressed with this museum* or the Art Gallery of Alberta, though both had some nice paintings by Alex Janvier.  The story behind Blood Tears is quite sad, and I did manage to make time to sit through the video where Janvier discussed his time in Canada's residential schools.

Alex Janvier, Blood Tears, 2001

I made it to the pool just slightly after noon, and it was going to close at 1!  I managed to get about 10 laps in, and I was hoping to get in a few more, but the medium speed lane was pretty clogged up and frustrating (for me anyway), and I definitely wanted to make sure I got in the hot tub, so I gave up a bit early.  I definitely could have swum another 10 minutes, but they have removed the clock, so that doesn't help!

I wandered over to the park next to the pool, and there was some sort of First Nations gathering and art fair.  I had on a fairly innocuous Canada t-shirt, but it did feel out of place there...

I then biked over to TMU.  I didn't go into the Image Centre today, but I did stop and got a mango lassi, and then briefly stopped in a BMV but didn't buy anything.  I then biked over to Robarts.  I had one book to pick up, and I had a bit of time to read before I went off to work.  At the moment, I am reading Frederick Seigel, who has a reputation for being a somewhat boorish/brutal poet.  I probably will have to find the time to read through the full Cosmos Trilogy and see what I think.  I also read Andrea Cohen's The Sorrow Apartments.  While I was there, I was able to borrow a few other books by Andrea Cohen, though it does appear that Long Division is not in either TPL or Robarts (and is essentially OOP).  I'm going to try not to stress too much about the fact that I can't track this down, as it is an early collection.  From what I've read/skimmed so far she is a lesbian poet who often "passes" as straight and this can lead to odd situations.  I liked her "Propeller" poem but it was a bit too long for my transportation poetry anthology.  I will probably spend the most time with her collection Nightshade, and this is the one that has the highest overlap with my current pre-occupations.  I did like this short poem called "Fellow Traveler": "She went everywhere / with an empty suitcase. // You never know when / you'll need to leave // swiftly with nothing."

After this, I went down to work.  I mostly was there to do some GIS analysis, since I find it a hassle to get the VPN running from home.  Actually, I did stop in at Bau-Xi on the way there, but didn't have time to run into the AGO.

They have a relatively new artist under their wing, Laurent Chéhère.  I thought his work was droll, though I would be a lot more likely to get a poster rather than trying to acquire the original.

Laurent Chéhère, Vertigo

While I probably should have pushed on and typed up my bus playlet, I just didn't have the energy.  (I think this will be the same story tonight, sadly.)

I actually did sleep in quite late on Sunday, and finally was ready to leave the house around 11.  I went over to the gym first, and put in an almost full routine.  I have started in on Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain.  I've read a fair bit of Ellison (what there is at least) and some Richard Wright and then even some secondary figures like John A. Williams (and now Thomas's Man Gone Down), but I have not read much of Baldwin, so I hope to correct that this year.

I picked up groceries on the way home.  While it was sprinkling on the morning, it had cleared up, so I biked like mad down to the Toronto Music Garden to see a show at 4.  I actually got there with 15 minutes to spare, only to find that they had cancelled it due to "the weather."  As far as I can tell, Moneka Arabic Jazz did go on last Thurs., when it was a lot more threatening.  So this was a pretty major disappointment.  I will try to get back there two Sundays from now when there will be a  percussion group from UT performing Reich and some other pieces.  I certainly hope the weather cooperates this time around.

I biked up Spadina (not fun!) and stopped in at BMV.  They bought my copy of the Heptameron and pretty much all the CDs I had (including a few from the bargain bin at Cop's!).  I swung by Robarts and picked up another book.  It was 5, so I thought there was a decent chance the Reference Library would be open, since it doesn't open until 1:30 on Sunday.  Surely it would be open until 5:30 or 6.  Wrong!  It closes at 5, which makes absolutely no sense, particularly from a staffing perspective.  Who wants to show up for a 3.5 hour shift?  So that was quite annoying, and I'll have to find time to get over there some other time.

I basically read the rest of the evening, and tried to clean up some computer files.  I probably should try to get one more thing done for work, and then if I have the energy, perhaps I will type up my latest submission for SFYS, even though it will be going in for the Sept. edition at this point.

* The guy at the gift shop said that all the actual dinosaur bones are restricted to the Royal Tyrrell Museum just outside of Drumheller.  Sad. 

Wrapping Up the Long Weekend

Sadly I never did get to just sit outside and read.  I had planned on doing that today, but it sprinkled a bit in the morning, and then rained pretty much non-stop from mid-afternoon to 8 pm.  I finally went out for a short walk after the rain stopped, but it was too dark and damp to sit outside and read.  Too bad.  I also had thought I might swing by the Rex, but that is definitely out as well.

I spent far more time than I expected in going through old stacks of newspapers, as they had become a health and safety hazard.  I also rearranged a bunch of boxes and looked through them for missing books.  In the end, I did turn up Cela's The Hive and another couple of books that had been misplaced.  Yea!  I also added Kennedy's Ironweed to the stack of short books that I am prioritizing.  I did not find a book on COVID that I had hoped would turn up, and now I am wondering if I loaned it to someone.

I'm going to have to go through a similar process for CDs, since there are a few missing items from a box set (and I can't sell it off with anything missing).  I probably should book a staycation just to get through everything, but it won't be for a while now.  I'll see if I can slowly take other CDs and DVDs to BMV and make a bit more space for this cleaning operation.  On the flip side, I picked up some CDs from the bargain bins at Kop's Records up on the Danforth, but a couple of disks were missing from the Red Nichols' Brunswick Sessions, but they actually are available on iTunes, so at least I could listen to the music.  When I have absorbed the music, I'll probably put everything out in the Little Free Library out in front.

I actually did have to do a bit more work than I expected today, but that's nothing new, I guess.  

The one thing that I would like to tackle is to write up my mini-epic about the Greyhound bus ride.  I think I have missed the deadline for submissions to this month's SFYS, but I should just write it up and get it in and then turn my attention to something else.

It may be worth mentioning that I got over to the TMU Image Centre (just before my trek over to BMV), as well as TIFF twice this weekend.  I saw Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo.  I'll just say that aside from the dragging the boat up over the mountain, I didn't like this much at all.  It is definitely too long, and the ending makes absolutely no sense.  

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

We're shown the maps time and again, and the Pongo rapids are miles and miles north of the large tract that Fitzgerald has leased (as he has landed a fair distance south of this land).  We're talking about a 2 or 3 day trip up to the Pongos at the fastest under full steam, so the idea that they would float there overnight carried by the river is completely stupid.  Then apparently, after his rival buys the boat back from him, he now has sufficient cash to stage an opera on the boat itself, though I assume he has financially ruined his mistress, since the lease on the land expired.  Why not simply cut to the chase and hire the musicians to turn up wherever he wanted them?  I just found this a completely stupid and exasperating movie, not helped at all by the fact that I hate opera...*

I was supposed to see Hitchcock's Spellbound the next day, also in the front row, but then a seat in the third row opened up at the last minute, and I snagged that.  It was still too close, but a little better.  This is a lesser film, though I did like Dali 's dream sequence.  I did blink for a second and managed to miss the Hitchcock cameo.  Oh well.

I'm glad I did take a chance on them, but neither movie really lived up to the hype.  (I mean The Boy and The Heron didn't either...)  Unfortunately, I think I'll have to break here, since there are still a few things I ought to do before the holiday break is over.

*  Oh, and I was in the very front row due to TIFF's completely inane all-you-can-watch membership policies.  At the box office, they flat out admitted to me that because they don't get any money from showing all these classics, they stuff them up onto the top floor where they have extremely limited seating.  So short-sighted and stupid, and I am not going to renew my membership.

Computer Connection Issues

It is so frustrating when the internet (and cable) companies keep changing things in the background, forcing you to endlessly update.  At the moment, I seem to be completely locked out of Paypal, and since I refuse to do biometric verification, I am going to close down my account with them, though I certainly want to transfer the funds out first!

My phone is not upgraded enough to get work emails and so forth.  That's actually not a bad thing, and if work absolutely insists on my being connected 24/7, then they will have to pay for the upgrade or provide me a work phone.  I'm much more annoyed that Google wallet says it won't work on my phone starting today actually, as I have some summer concert tickets on there.  It says Android needs to be upgraded, but I seriously doubt this phone has the memory to upgrade.  I guess I'll find out.

Perhaps the most baffling and annoying is that MailStore has suddenly completely stopped working with Bell to backup my email.  It just says the connection was forcibly refused!  I'm sure this is something on the Bell side of things, though I suppose there is a tiny chance that it is a new firewall setting, but this isn't such a major provider that MailStore is going to go to the effort of releasing new instructions on what to do, and I can't imagine calling up Bell is going to be illuminating at all.  I am going to attempt migrating to a new version of MailStore, though I need to back the old stuff up on a different hard drive before I do that.  Anyway, this is all super annoying and really the last thing I wanted to be dealing with right now.

I'm also a bit frustrated by SFYS, as they don't even have the courtesy of saying whether my piece(s) was accepted.  Given that they extended the deadline, presumably because they didn't have enough scripts, if my piece isn't selected tonight, then I'm just going to cut my ties with them completely.  It is completely unhelpful for my motivation to try to get in with a cold read series that won't even take my work!  It is so unfortunate, but that's just the way it goes.  There were basically three incarnations of SFYS (that I was involved with at any rate) before this one.  I had mixed success with the first one, but there were so many actors coming by and the vibe was so positive, that it made up for that.  Then I had an almost perfect acceptance record with the second and third incarnations.  Those days are over sadly...

I'm also pissed off at the TTC.  I mean what else is new.  I am grateful that they didn't strike in the end (or at least for now).  But they really messed up my Sunday, though I'm not sure it is worth writing about.  The TTC is so unreliable these days, and I just try to bike instead when possible, and in fact I'm about to bike off to work right now.  Ciao!

Edit (6/10) My piece is being read tonight.  Yea!

Last Minute Script

There are more than a few things I'd like to write up, including how pleased I am that Trump is a convicted felon (and how sad I am that this makes almost no difference at all to his cult of followers but it might make enough of a difference to the swing voters in the swing states).  I guess we won't know until November.  I also managed to track down quite a few missing photos.  The number of missing posts where I showcase the amazing museums I have visited in the past couple of years is really shamefully long.  I will see if I can rectify that next week.

I'm fairly busy this weekend but probably not quite as busy as last weekend.  I also did a bit of yardwork recently.  So I may water the plants but I probably won't bother weeding this weekend, so that is one thing that is a bit less stressful.

I will need to decide fairly soon if I am going to try to go swimming at Jimmie Simpson because the pool at Matty Eckler is out of service and probably will be so for at least one more week, which really means two more weeks.  I expect to be at Jimmie Simpson on Sunday for the Riverdale Art Walk, but because I need to head over to the Distillery by 12:45, I just can't see getting in any laps this weekend.  But I will try to coordinate and go at least once next week (and maybe even two times to make up for not going last week when I found Matty Eckler was no longer a viable option).

Anyway, today I wrapped up work right around 5:30 and headed over to The Rex.  I think this is the first time in May.  I wrote out a few more pages of the piece I am working on, which is called The Door.  I also dug up a notebook where I had written down some of the very first pieces I had jotted down about this potential series about planners and their planning hijinks.  Most importantly, this has the names I came up with for the main cast.  So in a way, I feel I can start piecing things together in earnest now.  I really was not able to type up my notes until I got home.  (I have been out late and crashed when I got home on the other evenings.)  Since SFYS deadline was May 31, that meant I really just had to transcribe a bunch of pages and edit on the fly.  I think it came together reasonably well except for the second last page of the script.  It's still moderately impressive (to me) that I wrote a 10.5 page script in about 4 hours, even with the scribbled notes as a starting point.  I then struggled to get access to Google forms to submit the script, but pulled it off with about 15 minutes to go.  Hopefully, next time around I won't cut it quite so close.

Ok, that's enough about that, but I did want to share a minor triumph over deadlines with you.  I will try to carve out more time to talk about other things on my mind later this week.

Edit (6/10) My piece is being read tonight.  Yea!

Sing-for-Your-Supper Reborn

So it actually has happened.  Sing-for-Your-Supper is back on!  It's actually the 2nd Monday of the month way out west at the Assembly Theatre on Queen West (or Queen West West...).  Monday was a particularly crappy day to try to head west across the city.  Line 2 was down for 12 hours!  I almost never take the TTC anymore, though I do take it if I am going out to Parkdale.  But it was threatening to rain, and I had a very oversized book to collect from the library, and it simply would not fit in my bike bag.  I got to the library and got the book, then saw the King streetcar coming, so I jumped on that.  I really think they should have made some announcements that Line 2 was down.  The streetcar just crawled up to Broadview station.  I saw hundreds of people out on the street waiting for shuttle buses.  One of the workers said that Line 2 had already been down for 3 hours, so I jumped back on the King streercar, which naturally got extremely crowded.  While I could technically have taken this downtown, I just didn't want to get stuck downtown when I needed to get back home in the middle of the afternoon.  After we finally got back to Gerrard, I got off and caught a streetcar home.  So incredibly frustrating.  

Even after work, the subway was still down, so I decided I would need to stick to streetcars.  I took Gerrard all the way to Yonge, then Line 1 (which hadn't been effected by the hydraulic fluid spill!) to Union.  I actually grabbed some things from Longos, dropped that huge book off at work, and then caught the King car west.  It was quite crowded to roughly Bathurst and then it got better.  It is somewhat droll that it is actually easier for me to get to the Theatre Centre and Assembly Theatre with the King streetcar diverted up to Queen for watermain work on King.  I think the diversion lasts through the end of the year more or less.  I made it with about 5 minutes to spare, not that they started remotely on time.  I saw a few actors I hadn't seen in years, and we chatted.  I was very surprised to see Scott Garland and Kat Letwin back.  They had been the original hosts when I started going to Storefront Theatre up on Bloor many, many years ago.  (Probably around 2017, though I'd have to dig through the blog to confirm...)  Scott bowed out roughly around the time that Storefront lost its lease and then SFYS started moving around the city, first to some random venues in Parkdale and then mostly over at Tarragon.  Kat and another comic did hosting duties and they had someone else vet the scripts, but then she moved to Ottawa!  And then Covid hit.  Actually Scott and Kat came back and did virtual hosting for a while, but eventually they pulled out and it fell to a couple other actors and then people just lost interest in Zoom readings unfortunately.  So it was great to see them back, lending their support.  A passing of the torch, as it were.  I think it may take a while for this to hit critical mass, but it may get there eventually, now that it seems to have a new home.  We definitely need younger actors and more female actors to show up.  Kat was cast in 4 plays, which meant there was no run through for most of them.  I stepped in and read one part, which I often did during the Tarragon days.  My piece wasn't selected.  While that is unfortunate, mostly I wish I had been notified one way or the other.  What's a bit interesting is that the current crew seems to favor playlets with parts for more actors, which makes sense as they are actors first.  (I think my piece only had two or at most three parts.)  But until a larger crowd starts showing up, then more intimate pieces make a bit more sense.  Anyway, the next piece I am working on will probably have 5 or 6 parts, so maybe they'll take it.  Fingers crossed.  More information on the newest incarnation of SFYS here.

It was a fun evening, though the performances were pretty ragged and almost none of the playwrights were in attendance!   Again, something that will likely be fixed in the future as the kinks get worked out.  I was surprised that transit going back was pretty smooth.  I took a King car to University, since this one was going to the Distillery.  I was going to take Line 1 up to Line 2 to see if it truly was back up, but there was a Kingston car immediately following, so I took that east and then was able to catch the 72 bus.  I think it took less than an hour, which is pretty good for running west to east like that.  Nonetheless, I will try to stick to the bike the rest of this week, though rain is definitely in the forecast.  Booo.

Getting Warmer

The cold snap seems to be over.  I was able to bike to work on Monday, though it was far from great.  There was still a fair bit of snow and slush, particularly near all the streetcar stops on King.  I believe it should rain on Tues., which will hopefully wash most of that away, and Wed. and Thurs. look pretty decent, though I probably won't ride on Wed. either since I need to meet my wife at the theatre.  We're seeing Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which should be a lot of fun.  At least for me.

I was pleased that The Heptameron showed up, and actually I was able to order a replacement for a Krazy Kat book of the dailies that never arrived.  It turned up, and I ordered a couple more, which just got dispatched, so I think I have the full run of dailies from 1921-1928.  I also have the "panoramic" dailies from 1920, though this is buried under a huge stack of art books, so I probably won't be reading any time soon, but at least I know where it is!  

I'm now debating going back in time but most of the collections of daily strips from the 1910s are out of print, and I'd have to get them on eBay and have them shipped to the States.  So possible, but not ideal.

I just finished Rushdie's Fury.  It's probably in my top 5 Rushdie novels, though the ending wasn't as strong as I had hoped.  There are actually some interesting parallels to Absurdistan (mostly when the main characters get trapped in somewhat pathetic revolutions in Third World countries).  I found it a bit droll that the narrator of Absurdistan, Misha Vainberg, aka Snack Daddy, compares himself to Oblomov.  This wasn't enough for me to drop Absurdistan and start reading Oblomov, but I do think I'll get around to Oblomov by the fall.  I'm going to get started on Lermontov's A Hero of Our Times much sooner, probably by the end of the week, at least partly because it is so much shorter.

One nice thing happened on Saturday, despite my having to get my boots out of the closet.  Sigh.  I was returning some books at the Jones library, and I saw a sign about eclipse glasses.  I didn't think they had any but asked anyway, and they were in stock, so I got a pair for me and a pair for my daughter.  Score!  (It turns out I will be in Vancouver on a business trip on the 8th, and the eclipse will be fairly pathetic that far west, not to mention the fact that it will probably be overcast and I don't think there will be an "eclipse break," but I'll bring the glasses anyway.  At least I did see a pretty good partial eclipse in 2017.) 

And I ran into an actor friend, who has a work gig in my new office building!  That was quite a surprise.  I'll see if we can grab lunch one of these days.  I also had heard that SFYS is going to be restarted for real this May (and in person!), so that is also something that cheered me up.  Of course, I'll be even more thrilled if my submission from many months back is accepted, but I'll be happy just knowing SFYS is back in business.

I managed to force myself to go to the gym on Sunday, despite not wanting to go.  Then I had planned to drop by the ROM, since it was free all weekend.  When I wandered by, the line was so, so long.  It was probably moving fairly quickly, but it clearly was going to take 30-45 minutes minimum to get inside, and I was downtown to see a Tafelmusik concert and just didn't have that time to spare.  So I went over to Robarts instead for a while, then on to the concert.

I don't want to write at length about it, but I just saw Canadian Stage announced their season.  This is by far the most interesting (to me) season I have seen in some time.  They clearly are returning to plays and much less dance and multi-media spectacle.  I wonder if they have a new AD.  I recall an interview with their AD from several years back, and he was almost entirely about spectacle, and I stopped going altogether. 

Now do I need to see Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf again?  No -- but to see Paul Gross, Martha Burns, Mac Fyfe and Hailey Gillis?  I can't pass that up.  I've seen Mac Fyfe in several things, plus some plays he directed.  I saw Martha Burns several years back.  I could have seen Gross as Lear at Stratford, but I was just all Lear-ed out...  Many of the other plays they are doing are tied to Shakespeare, but in interesting ways.  I think 1939 is probably the most intriguing, but Fat Ham looks worth seeing also.  I'd probably pass on Playing Shylock, but we'll see.  I'm even planning on going to High Park to see them do Hamlet, despite the extra hard seats, since the cast looks just amazing.  I will see if I can take my son, though I don't know how often he'll be back in Toronto this summer.

Last summer, I had thought seriously about checking out The Mahabharata at Shaw, but I just couldn't swing it, so I'll go now.  As I said, this season really fits me quite well, which is good, as I am generally not all that interested in Tarragon or Soulpepper these days, with a few honourable exceptions.

Today, after work I was able to switch the bank my gym takes the monthly fees from, which is an important step before I can close down that account and consolidate everything with a new bank.  I dropped off the Keith Haring book, which I've had out for many, many months (since just a short time after the cyber-attack in fact).  Now I just need to juggle the books I have out at Robarts, since I don't want to get hit with any late fees.  Most astonishing, no one was at Matty Eckler pool, so I had the whole thing to myself and got my laps in early.  That was quite nice.

Oh, I almost forgot.  One of the stairs going into the basement had broken.  In fact, we already had a handyman work on this exact riser before, but obviously the fix didn't take.  It took some time, but we finally got contractors over on Friday morning.  In fact, they showed up an hour early, which was quite a surprise, but they said that they could just fix the one riser, whereas other contractors insisted on recapping the whole staircase.  They basically quoted me a relatively low fee for an immediate repair, and I took them up on it, and they had it fixed within an hour.  How long will this repair last is a good question, but at least for now we can go up and down into the basement without peril, which is quite useful on laundry days... 

So generally some good things were happening over the weekend and early in the week, and I will try to hang onto my good cheer as the weather continues to warm up.  Ciao!

Random Updates - Late Dec.

So many things to comment on; it's hard to even know where to start.

I have exciting news (to me) about a new job opportunity, but since I am still waiting on the formal offer, I should hold off, aside from saying I'll be back in the private sector by late Jan. (though not in time to justify a trip to TRB -- drat).  The annoyance of time sheets aside (i.e. having to justify yourself to the corporate powers that be), it seems I work better on multiple projects for multiple clients rather than focusing on just one big thing for an extended period of time.  

Let me go back to the 16th (the subject of my last post).  As I was heading out, my front bike tire was pretty flat, which was a bad sign.  I pumped it up and it got me to the downtown office and then over to Buddies for Angels in America Part 1.  (I did decide to skip going to the gym but otherwise wasn't too bothered by my arm fortunately!)  I was so relieved to find out that the whole cast was intact for the last weekend (& no COVID derailments).  I thought it was a very good production, at the same level as the one in Chicago.  I would have liked the Angel to come down from the ceiling and not through the wall, but that's a minor quibble.  I also wasn't quite sure why she should have stumps rather a full set of wings.  (It's almost like she wandered in from the set of Rivera's Marisol -- another play I try to see whenever I have the chance.)  

Anyway, the play ended in 3 hours and 15 minutes, about 15 minutes earlier than I was expecting, which was great.  I rode over to 401 Richmond and saw a few shows there, including the year-end group salon at Yumart.  There were a couple of pieces that I liked by Tim Deverell, including an older piece and this new one:

Tim Deverell, Gambits, 2022

I perhaps could pick one up to celebrate the new job, but again no point in getting too ahead of myself.  Leaving 401 Richmond, I realized my tire was really flat, so whatever puncture I had was pretty bad.  I more or less rode on my rims to get back to Union Station.  I ate a quick dinner, then left the bike there (to collect it on Sunday) and went back for Angels, Part Two at Buddies.  Again, they did not disappoint, though I will say that the Antarctica dream sequence was more impressive on Broadway.  (I vaguely remember dry ice and maybe a couple of stuffed penguins.)  There was one part when Prior visits heaven that I didn't recall but otherwise it's actually a bit remarkable how much I remembered from roughly 20 years ago when I saw it last.  It wrapped up just after 11 pm, so truly a full day of theatre.  While the production seemed pretty well attended, I find it astonishing that the Star didn't review it* nor did Glenn Sumi.  I guess the Globe and Mail did send a reviewer, who gave it a mixed review.  Then there was a totally off-base review from Intermission.  I think only Slotkin felt as positively about the show(s) as it did.  Anyway, definitely one of the best theatre events of 2023.  I'll get to the rest in an upcoming post.

On Sunday, I actually had planned to spend part of the day working at Robarts.  I did accomplish this, although Percival Everett's Erasure was missing from the stacks, which was very disappointing.  I had decided, sort of at the last minute, that I should try to read it after all (despite what I wrote here) before watching the movie American Fiction, which is based on Erasure.  There are probably a few copies of Erasure in the TPL system, but they still haven't fixed any part of the system, not even an internal catalogue, so no one knows where any books are.  The whole library system is next to being completely useless and has been this way for weeks now.  If I happen to get over to the Theatre Centre (prob. not until Feb. for Shakespeare Bash'd) or Assembly Theatre (just possibly SFYS will actually happen for realz this Jan.) I'll stop in at the Parkdale Library, as they might have Erasure.  I'm also probably going to head up to North York to see if a couple of recent art books are in their collection, and I guess I'll look for Erasure while I'm up there.  (I did call to verify you can at least go into the non-fiction stacks, but I had to go to another library website to verify what the Dewey Decimal call numbers would be if they did have the books.  So crazy!) 

I also wanted to stop in at the AGO, but there was an injury on the tracks that had completely shut down that side of Line 1.  I figured it probably would have cleared up after my trip to Robarts, but close to two hours later, the subway was still shut down!  As annoying as that was, I will be going to the AGO on Boxing Day, so it is more a case of art deferred.  I then had to backtrack to Bloor-Yonge and go to work that way.  (Again, none of this even would have an issue if my bike was working.)  I did bring the bike home on the subway, which is extremely rare for me.  The subway stations are certainly not designed for bikes!  Once again, I pumped up the tires and they held on long enough to get me from Danforth to Bain, and I walked to the rest of the way.

Monday I worked from home in the morning and dropped off my bike at the bike shop, which doesn't open until 11 am (and is not open on Sunday).  Then I took the TTC in to work.  I was able to get the bike Tues. after work, just in time for it to get cold, and I only rode in to work on Thurs.  I also went to the gym twice and I snuck in some swimming as well.  While I still have a bit of a cough, it hasn't completely derailed my exercise routines.  Still, it was hard that first time back after close to a two week gap!

I'll just touch briefly on my reading, and then I have to go.  I think I am definitely tougher on books than I used to be.  I reread The Sun Also Rises and hated all the characters this time around.  The casual racism and anti-Semitism are almost unbearable to me.  And the celebration of toxic masculinity is just so painful.  I think it is likely that Hemingway is only going to be remembered for his short stories 100 years from now, as no one will want to read the novels.  A Farewell to Arms wasn't much better, though there was less racism, simply because there weren't as many people of color or Jews in Italy.  The actual dialogue between Frederic and Catherine is so cringey; he talks to her like she's an idiot, and she basically lapses into baby-talk most of the time.  Add in two super-human escapes, and Frederic is little more than a male "Mary Sue."  I did not like it on any level.  It's surely a mistake, but I'm still going to get around to For Whom the Bell Tolls (at some point), but I am going to be quicker on the trigger finger to dump this book.

I liked the first section of Conrad's Under Western Eyes, which definitely does have shades of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, but then the perspective switches from omniscient third person to a limited and somewhat unreliable first person narrator, who then peruses the journals of Razumov, and is thus able to fully reconstruct the minute details of Razumov's interactions with the revolutionary Haldin and several other key characters.  I strongly dislike this switching back and forth of perspective, particularly when there is a first person narrator with access to information that never would have been written down in a diary or letter.  This bugged me quite a bit in Proust, and it seemed to me a complete mistake here that fatally damaged the book.  If the book had been simpler, and just an expansion of parts one and three, I would have liked it better, though I still probably wouldn't have liked the ending, but certainly I did not like the novel that Conrad actually wrote.  Too bad...

I did get through Perec's Life, A User's Manual.  More than anything I found it a bit exhausting.  In so many places the mini-chapters just became lists and lists of things, particularly descriptions of every painting in a room or all the items on a workbench.  The structure was clearly inspired by Calvino's Invisible Cities with an infusion of Borges's Funes the Memorious.  I'm glad I finally have read it, but ultimately it left me pretty cold.  I never got a handle on most of the characters and the only one that really stood out (Bartlebooth) had such a stupid life goal (to spend his whole fortune creating paintings, turning them into jigsaw puzzles, and then destroying them) that I lost considerable interest in the book.  I did not realize, while reading Life, that this character was supposed to be an amalgam of Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener (whom I don't care for for intensely personal reasons) and Valery Larbaud's Barnabooth.  I suppose one good thing that has come out of this is that I am spending more time working on a jigsaw puzzle (of Monet's water lilies) that has really stumped me.  My goal is to complete it to ensure I have not lost any pieces (itself no sure thing), and then give it away.

I wasn't thrilled with Martin Amis's The Rachel Papers because the narrator is definitely a creep.  While the second half got better, I really didn't think that highly of Brewer's The Red Arrow.  A couple of the stories in Jem Calder's Reward System are ok, but I find the very flat, affectless writing out-putting (or maybe I just find Gen Z problems so uninteresting?).  Calder reminds me just a bit of Douglas Coupland, but much less entertaining and humourous.  I'm really struggling to think what will be the last book on my best books list, since I haven't like much I've read for a while.  I expect Erasure might have made the list, but it is so hard to get my hands on a copy.

I did not like Alice Notley's Certain Magical Acts, as the poems were just so long and boring. I didn't much care for the short stories in Munro's Open Secrets, as I just didn't find her use of historical fiction compelling or particularly believable.  I was glad that after a long hiatus, I'm finally starting to read through Narayan, but I absolutely hated The Man-Eater of Malgudi.  What a terrible novel.  I'm really hoping the next two are a return to form.

Anyway, yesterday it was a very wet day, though I managed to force myself to the gym and to get groceries (assuming that today would be even more crowded).  Then I walked down and saw the hit musical at Crow's Theatre: Pierre, Natasha and the Great Comet of 1812.  It was pretty good, though I generally don't care much for musicals with a few exceptions.**  I did like the music, which mixed classical music and electro-pop and maybe even some disco.  The lyrics were generally not as compelling with some exceptions.  I also thought the ending was a bit of a cop out, but I guess there were only so many liberties they could take with the script, as this is drawn from a couple of chapters from Tolstoy's War and Peace!  (Maybe this will finally inspire me to tackle this tome in 2024 or 2025 after I get through those other Russian novels like Oblomov and A Hero of Our Times.)

I guess that gets me mostly caught up for Dec. at least.  I still need to go back and document some trips I took in 2023 and write up my year-end round-ups.  Fortunately, I don't have a lot going on this week other than going to the AGO on Boxing Day and maybe seeing America Fiction.  My son is deciding if he wants to go with me to see The Boy and the Heron in Japanese with subtitles.  I already saw it dubbed and don't plan on seeing it dubbed a second time.  There might be something to check out over at TIFF, but otherwise, I think I will mostly be reading and writing this week and maybe trying to wrap up some key work projects.

Jan. is looking like it might be very busy between going back to Buddies in Bad Times several times, and a few concerts (including Skye Wallace just popping up at Cameron House) and some great acts at The Rex (often with Neil Swainson on bass in support), so I'll be staying pretty busy.  It's probably just as well I'm not heading out to DC for TRB this year after all.  

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for 2024!

* And I am almost in total disagreement with Karen Fricker's best of 2023 list, though I did like Edward II at Stratford and The Master Plan at Crow's.  Oh, Sizwe Banzi was great as well.

** I do really like The Book of Mormon and may go again in Jan.  Spamalot was also great, and Some Like It Hot was good, though I don't think I'd see it a second time.  (I actually did have the chance to catch Avenue Q here in Toronto.  I thought about it for a while but ultimately passed.)  And how can you go wrong with every Gershwin hit song packed into Crazy for You?  I also was blown away by Hedwig and the Angry Inch and now regret not seeing it before when I had the chance(s).  (I see Shotgun Players in Berkeley are just wrapping up a run.  Based on their past work, I'm sure that would have been great.  There is a company in Chicago that should be doing this over the summer, so I may check back later.  And a company in Buffalo should put Hedwig on in Oct.  That overlaps with the Marisol exhibit at the Albright-Knox, so I might try to make that work, even though it might mean an overnight stay in Buffalo, which doesn't thrill me.)

Incidentally, the rotating stage for Natasha and Pierre reminded me of the Northwestern production of Not Wanted on the Voyage (yes, based on the Findley novel).  I thought that was a pretty incredible show that never quite made it to Broadway, so I wrote Crow's Theatre and recommended they consider tracking down the writers (Bartram and Hill) and putting it on themselves.  I would see that again for certain.  (Crow's wrote back and said they would look into it, not that I really think this will lead anywhere, but I tried.)

Busy Weekend Recap

I already mentioned that I thought The Baltimore Waltz over at Factory Theatre was great.  What I wasn't so crazy about was that it snowed almost the entire day, starting around 10 am and only finally stopping around 9 pm.  There weren't huge snowdrifts, but the streets and sidewalks were pretty slushy, slippery and gross.  I sort of regretted getting on the Queen streetcar where there was a homeless guy throwing things all over the floor of the streetcar.  Then he decided to light up about a block away from his stop (Sherbourne of course).  So charming.

Sat. was pretty jam-packed.  I debated going to the gym, but I just cannot force myself to go right now when I have to wear boots and/or the bridge is slippery.  I was better about going during the wintery days last year, but I am just not in a great mental space right now (esp. due to work), and I just can't face up to it.  That does mean that I have even more work to start getting back in shape this spring, but so be it.  I decided to head downtown and try to drop off a package with UPS.  I was not helped out at all by the 72 bus, which wasn't going to turn up for another 15 minutes, which pissed me off.  So I walked up to Danforth, grumbling pretty much the whole way.  I barely made it to the UPS Store before it closed.

I decided to check out the AGO.  For some reason there was a very aggressive homeless man on the steps being very aggressive towards me and other people walking past.  I went inside and told them they should call security on him.  I also wandered over to the Bau-Xi galleries to see their new shows.  I stopped in at MEC on the way to 401 Richmond.  I thought the bike bells were all terrible, but I did get a replacement light for one that had been stolen off my bike a while back.

It was worth ducking into 401 Richmond.  Yumart had rescheduled the Leon Rooke opening from the previous Sat. (when the weather was even worse).  I liked this piece a lot, and was tempted to put in an offer, but I do shy away from truly figurative pieces, as I generally do feel they don't hold as much mystery (or my attention) after a while.  Also, I have virtually no empty spaces on my wall at home and we aren't allowed to put anything on the walls at work.

Leon Rooke, Two Moons, One Bull, 2022

Abbozzo Gallery was also having some sort of reception, and I grabbed some cheese and crackers.  Red Head Gallery was open this weekend (it was closed last Sat.), and I saw an exhibit called The Green Suitcase, which was interesting.

This was my favourite piece from the show, though I don't think it was labelled. 

I didn't really want to walk over to Union, but I also didn't want to pay the full TTC fare.  In the end I walked...

Later that evening, I made it over to the Bill Frisell concert at about 7:20 or so.  I found a seat and tried to read.  I think I already mentioned I wished he had been playing with his quartet, which includes the saxophonist Greg Tardy.  I have no idea how those shows go, but they would have to be more appealing than this concert.  No question I was a bit stressed because I wanted to get to the Skye Wallace thing at Cameron House, but I still would have hated this concert.  The drummer was pretty good, and I could generally appreciate what the bassist was doing, but Frisell spent the entire time doing some weird stutter-stop improv thing back and forth with the bassist.  A lot of people enjoyed it, but I didn't like his playing on any level.  It didn't flow, and frankly it all felt pretty amateurish, particularly when compared to Adrian Belew the week before.  Frisell can obviously play, based on his many records, but why he didn't choose to do more traditional songs is completely beyond me.  This piece finally came to an end, and I decided to bolt, even though I was in the middle of the row.  It had been an hour of freeform guitar wankery, and I was ready to go.  At least the streetcar turned up quickly, and I headed down to Queen and Spadina.  I managed to get there where the first opening act was still on.  I also managed to talk to Skye a bit.  She said she would consider fitting Dead Things, Part II into her acoustic set the following day.  I bought her new CD and got her to sign it.  One thing that was different -- and a bit concerning -- was that her regular guitar player wasn't there and Gina, her keyboard player, was also absent.  She had a couple of friends filling in, including the flautist who was the first opening act (she can also play keyboards).  I had been thinking about writing a short playlet about a band break-up, and I thought perhaps she would want to read it, depending on the exact circumstances.  Anyway, it was a pretty good set.  They played most of the songs off her new CD, plus "Swing Batter," "Coal in Your Window" and a few other older songs.  While the transit back wasn't too bad, I still didn't get home until just after midnight.

I did manage to finish Walker's The Moviegoer.  Unfortunately, this novel kind of ran out of steam about halfway through, and the ending was pretty disappointing.  The novel kept foreshadowing this major tragedy (probably a suicide) and just nothing of any importance happened.  This is a novel that skates by on its reputation but just isn't that interesting, at least not anymore.  

I had to get up a bit early on Sunday and get to Union by 10.  I got on the bus in time.  I mostly read this book on the pandemic's impact on transportation.  I got a bit more than halfway through, so I think I'm on track to finish it this week and start my review.  I also got 1/3 of the way through Tom Wolfe's Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.

St. Catharines was pretty rough (worse than Hamilton and pretty much at the same level as Buffalo's downtown).  I also was not at all impressed that the bathrooms were all out of order at the bus terminal, and there were no coffee shops or places with public washrooms (at least downtown).  I think on my last visit I stayed much closer to Brock.  It was still rough around the edges but not as desolate as the downtown.  I wandered around for about an hour.  

Surprisingly, I found a used record shop that was open.  I picked up a couple of CDs and 3 LPs.  Then I grabbed lunch at an Indian place.  The buffet, esp. the vegetarian dishes, looked pretty sad, so I ordered something off the menu.  My attention was split between some townies talking about the rundown bars and night clubs of Niagara and a medic coming in to check up on an alcoholic (and possible junky) who had fallen asleep for 45 minutes in the restroom.  He basically couldn't stand up, but he also refused to go to the hospital.  Finally a cop turned up and gently convinced him to move on.  I clearly would not last too long in such an environment, having to deal with so many down-on-their-luck types.

The good news is that the piece TorQ was playing, Wijeratne's Invisible Cities (yes, inspired by Italo Calvino), was quite good.  This was the world premiere of the orchestral version of it, so my recollection is correct that I probably heard a movement or two previously but that the whole piece was delayed by Covid and it wasn't just a matter of me missing an announcement or something.  I talked very briefly to one of the TorQ members, and he said they are trying to figure out how to get the piece recorded.

I was a bit nervous that the concert would run long, but I stayed for the second half where the orchestra was doing Rachmaninoff's 2nd Symphony.  I had about twenty minutes to hit the restroom and walk back over to the bus terminal.  One thing I didn't like was that there was no one there to help with information, and there was no sign saying which bus bay Megabus would load from.  So I had to wait outside and keep my eyes out for the bus.  I was pretty pissed off when someone rode their bike down the narrow sidewalk where the passengers were waiting to board buses, missing me by inches.  Then this disturbed young woman wandered by, yelling at me not to look at her.  Then she came a bit closer and accused me of stealing her bank card.  I went inside the station to look for security.  Apparently, she was a bit of a known character, and the security guard told a bus driver to let him know if he needed to remove her from his bus.  It really was a pretty gnarly scene.  She had left the platform by this time, so I went back outside.  Fortunately, the Megabus turned up on time, and I hopped on.  I do suspect that if I had been inside or just late, the bus would have left without me.  In general, it was a bit more stress than I had bargained for, and I think it is highly unlikely I'll be back in St. Catharines or Niagara Region more generally anytime soon.

One positive was that even though it started snowing (again!) and the traffic got heavier past Hamilton, we actually got back to Toronto a bit ahead of schedule.  I headed up to Cameron House again.  I had hoped to grab a sandwich at Banh Mi Boys, but it closed at 7, so I went back across Spadina to Basil Box for dinner.  I made it to the show just as the first opening act was wrapping up, just as I did the night before.  I had a chance to ask Skye about her band, and she said it was all good.  Gina and Devon were just busy; they were still in the band and would be off to South by Southwest (today I believe).  She was not as interested in reading a piece about a band breaking up as I had anticipated (possibly even thinking it would be bad majo or would jinx her if she read the piece), so I didn't bother pressing her.  I think I'll still try to write it up and send it over to SFYS for May.  (No word still if they are going to take the piece I already submitted for April.)  The acoustic set was good, but obviously more laid back.  She mostly performed solo, though sometimes her bass player joined her (though playing electric bass...) and sometimes a violin player as well.  I was disappointed that she didn't play Dead Things, Part II.  She was on a bit of a roll with 2 or even 3 songs basically about death or near-death experiences, so I thought it would slot in well.  Oh well.  We were treated to a new song called "You Don't Still Have a Hold on Me," which I liked.  

I actually made it back home while the Oscars will still going on, and I periodically checked the newsfeeds to see who had won, but I wasn't in the mood to actually watch the telecast.  On the whole, it was a pretty full weekend (that took me most of Monday to recover from...).  I don't think I have anything nearly as packed coming up, though I am supposed to see 3 plays over at Stratford one weekend in August.  So that's it for now.