Summerworks Teaser

I definitely should have tried to post this sooner.  At any rate, I consider Summerworks, the even more experimental cousin of Fringe!  This year is of more interest to me than Summerworks has been for a few years.  I haven't been too interested since a couple of years before COVID hit, though I probably should have tried to see Bimbos in Space last summer.  Maybe if it comes around yet again...  (On that same note, I keep trying to score tickets to see Barbarella on the 23rd at The Revue.  I am half-tempted to rush it, as most people do get in, but I'd rather have some certainty before I go all the way out there...)

Anyway, I saw a staged reading of a play (or work in progress) called digitrans//analogirl.  I would say it had its moments but it tried too hard to be understanding and respectful of everyone's positions that there really wasn't much conflict, and of course live theatre thrives on conflict.  

I was definitely thinking about going to see Public Consumption, which has showings on Wed. and Thurs., but another production (presumably a bit more fleshed out) is going to happen at Factory this Nov., so I'll try to catch that. 

I was able to get tickets (for this Wed.) to see a site specific play called Le Concierge where you follow a school janitor on his rounds.  This could be pretty interesting or it might be extremely tedious (which is pretty much the nature of work).  This is sold out, so no point in going on and on about it.  (It's over on Lansdowne, so it will be another long bike ride after work tomorrow...)

But I am just back from a very odd play/theatrical experience called The Chains.  It really pushes that bounds of what is theatre at all.  You sit at tables (seating 4 or 6 people) in an assembly hall, taking a personality test.  The people at each table are encouraged to take turns reading out the questions, which are sort of in the shape of a story about young people gearing up to put on a performance of Antigone.  This lasts for 50 minutes.  Based on your responses, you are sorted into Team Antigone, Team Late-Antigone, Team Creon or the Chorus.  (I was tied and could have gone on Team Late-Antigone or with The Chorus and went with the Chorus, which was a good choice.)  And then collectively you put on a super abbreviated performance of Antigone.  So audience participation is turned up to 11 -- or even 15!  I don't think I've ever experienced anything quite like that.  Might be worth checking out if you are looking for something very different from just sitting back and letting a play wash over you.  It does appear there are still tickets for a few remaining shows this week. 

I hope soon (by this weekend) I finish up my post about the new season and what I am looking forward to seeing, as it is a very promising season, and I already have a lot of shows booked and in my calendar.  Ciao!

Last Gasp of the Fringe

It looks like there are 4 shows left today (Sun July 20th) up in North York.

If you hustle, you could still make the first one at noon.

Line up here:
Playground - 12 pm
Things My Dad Kept - 2:30 pm
My Pet Lizard, Liz: The Shakespearean Existential Crisis that Led to his Ultimate Demise - 6 pm
Iris (says goodbye) - 8:30 pm

Tickets here.

I managed to see David Lynch's Seinfeld, and it was amazing.  Two of the actors really got the mannerisms and generally the vocal tics of Jerry and George.  The actor playing Kramer got the physicality of the character and sometimes the voice.  The Elaine role was not terribly challenging.  My main quibble is that they decided to stretch this out and ended up adding in a lot of Simpsons references, but cutting this to 45 minutes and dropping those would probably have been the better choice.  Nonetheless, a terrific show, and I'm glad I managed to get a ticket.

Many of the shows here dealt with grief, esp. Things My Dad Kept (which was very good) and My Pet Lizard, Liz.  My Pet Lizard, Liz had a fair bit of charm, but personally I couldn't connect with the way that the author was processing grief.  I also didn't understand why the lizard stopping hanging out with its poodle buddy long before the bad review came on (of its Fringe show).  This felt like a show aimed squarely at Gen Z creative types (who do more or less keep the Fringe going, along with Gen Y/Millennials), and certainly quite a few people liked it.  The one thing that spoke to me was the somewhat harsh 2 star review from the reviewer, which reminded me of my own Fringe show, which mostly got 2 star reviews.  (Indeed, ChatGPT brings this up every time I search for the show to confirm something-- fortunately not something I do often!)  And it is fair to say that it wasn't particularly edgy, and it was heavily inspired by Star Trek/Twilight Zone.  For me what matters is that we sold a fair number of tickets (thisclose to selling out a couple of times) and most of the people that went liked it a lot.  So you never know, and definitely don't let my nit-picking get in your way.  I think the only Best of Fringe that I didn't see was Playground, and I will just have to let this go.

I was, somewhat surprisingly, able to go swimming in the pool at the North York Civic Centre between Seinfelt and My Pet Lizard, Liz.  It is a big facility, with their lanes probably 50% longer than the Regent Park lanes.  And there really weren't that many swimmers, and we more or less stayed out of each other's way, which was incredible.  What isn't incredible is that there are all these concrete protuberances hanging out over the swim lanes, and I managed to smack my hand really hard against part of a "fun" slide into the swimming pool.  It really felt like I dislocated my finger.  It still hurts a bit one day later, but I'm pretty sure there is no permanent damage.  I ended up getting in 10 laps, which is probably the same as 15 in the Regent Park pool, and also their hot tub was open, so I soaked in that for a few minutes before getting back to the Fringe.  So my weekend exercise streak remains unbroken, and indeed I need to head out to the gym fairly soon.

I wasn't super impressed with the food options up there and just ended up with a snack from an Asian grocery store and ate when I got home...

I also came across the folders where I have been backing up the many, many art photos of my recent trips, so I think over the next few days I will finally upload some of those.

Last Day of Fringe (almost...)

This was going to be a longer post, but I'm running a bit late.  Yesterday was my last day of the Fringe.  I ended up seeing Emilio's A Million Chameleon's at the last minute, at least partly because of a quick chat I had with the creators on the Fringe Patio (still way, way too small, and hopefully they can figure out something better next year).  It was a kid's show but genuinely entertaining for slightly older crowds and adults.  I tried something similar one or two Fringes ago and it was pitched just a little too young for me.  That was their last show, however.

Same thing with Milk Milk Lemonade.  This was a clown show, mostly focusing on children's experiences at school, but towards the end, they had a gym coach giving a sex ed pep talk and then the parent teacher conferences.  I remember being on the parent side of a large number of these with my kids, but oddly I cannot remember if I actually had parents come check in with me when I was teaching in Newark.  I wonder if we even had a structured night or not.  That seems a weird thing not to do, but also I think I would have remembered if we did them.  Anyway, this show was side-splittingly funny.

In general, it looks like I picked reasonably well.  5 of the shows I went to ended up as Patron Pick's: Jimmy Hogg, Iris (Says Goodbye), A Sexy Pigeon Show, Adam Bailey: My Three Deaths and Hoody.  No idea if any of them still have tickets left at this point.  I had briefly debated going to see Galen's Grocer, but by the time I went to look, the tickets were gone.  I had hoped that A Cigarette That's Good for You would somehow add another show today, but that didn't happen, presumably at least in part because they already had an evening show on Sunday, which has been sold out for ages.

So between the originally scheduled Sunday programming and then a few Patron picks, there is still a lot to see, though I personally am Fringed out.

It is also the Toronto Outdoor Arts Fair, and it looks like the rain that came through will cool things down.  (It was absurdly hot yesterday!)  I'll circle back with some photos of TOAF tonight.  It was a pretty good year, though I am going to try not to buy anything, as tempting as it is sometimes...

Anyway, as I said, while the Fringe is winding down, this year they have brought back Best of the Fringe where 5 shows get two encore performances up in North York at Meridian.  (Tickets available here.)  Of the five, I had seen two: Iris (Says Goodbye), which I enjoyed but not quite to the same extent as the judges, and Things My Dad Kept, which was quite good.  One of the ones I had hoped to see was David Lynch's Seinfeld, so I grabbed a ticket to that for next Sat., so that will be interesting.  There is a small chance I will go ahead and see My Pet Lizard, Liz right after, but then I need to get back because I have a concert that evening.  My wife might have come along to the Seinfeld show, but she is actually off in Chicago that weekend.

I hope that the Fringe was rewarding for you, and do take advantage of this last day (and then bonus time shows next weekend)!

 

Fringe Winding Down

I liked the Adding Machine a lot.  I didn't realize that this is actually the Leroy Street Theatre sneaking into the Fringe through a non-conventional site (actually a puppy yoga salon!).  They have come back with a full season in 2025-26 (I think Acting Unit 102 may have bit the dust).  So that's all quite exciting, though they are kicking things off with Mamet's Oleanna, which I have zero intention of seeing, so I won't be doing a full subscription.  The reviews for this have been great (here and Glenn Sumi made it a Critic's Pick here (but behind paywall)).  It is mostly sold out, but does have some tickets remaining for the 13th.

I've generally enjoyed things I've seen with the exception of one where the concept was fine but the acting was shaky and one that was way too much ritual and nowhere near enough clowning.  I did enjoy Adam Bailey's My Three Deaths at Aki Studio in Regent Park but not as much as the leather-lunged woman sitting behind me who just was howling and cackling the whole time and frankly did detract from the experience.  I'm on the fence on Oh! I Miss the War, though this has been getting strong reviews, so I may go in the end.  It's also at Aki, so is fairly close to home, which is nice.

There are a few shows I've seen where they really committed to the bit, like Very Shady Arab Ladies and Hoody, though I was clearly not entirely on the same wavelength as the creators.  The Star reviewer (Chong) really liked Hoody, so I wouldn't want to discourage you from going.  

In general, I have picked shows that correspond with things that critics have enjoyed and/or have largely sold out, so I think I picked reasonably well this year.  I won't see it until Friday, but Stealing Home at Alumnae has generally gotten good reviews and still has seats left.

I'm running quite late at this point, but I thought I would mention that I finally finished Dombey and Son.  I didn't care much for it in general, particularly after the son exits the picture, and I thought the reconciliation scenes rang a bit false.  As with most Dickens's novels, it would be so much stronger if it were 100-200 pages shorter!  I should be able to wrap up Zhu Wen's I Love Dollars soon, and then on to The Leopard and Invisible Cities and maybe Lord Vishnu's Love Handles and perhaps Walden on the train to Montreal.  So much to do...

Edit (10 pm): Oh! I Miss the War was very good.  I'm glad I went in the end.  Two more performances at Aki Studio, and it seems like there is still good availability.  Anyway, I realized that while Leroy Street Theatre is back from the dead, it isn't clear just how active they will be going forward.  The new season (announced in The Adding Machine program) is Icarus Theatre and not Leroy Street Theatre itself.  Not entirely sure what the connection is...  I will say, I am not entirely sure I am going to go all in on a new theatre company, given they are picking shows that do not do anything for me.  I saw Lobby Hero in Hamilton, and while I imagine the acting at Icarus was better, it still was an extremely cliched script.  And they also did Payne's Constellations, which is just a completely empty pomo exercise.  And then they follow this up with Oleanna, which I will not go to.  So maybe I won't go to the other two shows.  We'll see closer to the time.

More Fringe

I actually had a Fringe-free Sat.  I first had to run over to Walmart to have a prescription filled and to buy a new bike light (as mine had been stolen on Friday evening).  Then I briefly hit the library, and then I went swimming.  It was surprisingly easy to get my laps in without bumping up against slow swimmers in the medium lanes.  I had hoped to finish up by 12:15, but it was actually 12:30 by the time I finished.  So I biked over to Carlton Cinema and saw Whispers of the Heart.  This is one of the relatively few Studio Ghibli films directed by someone other than Miyazaki (though he did write the script and generate the storyboards!).  It is also one of the relatively few Ghibli movies without fairy tale or supernatural elements, aside from a bit of a dream sequence.  (I guess one could also saw the same about Grave of the Fireflies, which I only just learned is officially a Studio Ghibli movie as well, and also not directed by Miyazaki.)  Anyway, it is a good film, once you get past the kind of icky feeling of watching two 14 year olds pledge undying love to each other...

Then I had a chance to see the Joyce Wieland exhibit at the AGO.  I'm glad she's getting the exposure (she also had a small show, more like a room of her art, at the National Gallery), but in general she doesn't excite me all that much.

Joyce Wieland, Betsy Ross, Look What They've Done with the Flag That You Made with Such Care, 1966

After this, I ran over to the Rex and saw a group called Waleed Kush Afro-Jazz.  As I probably have mentioned before, I like the Rex a lot, but it mostly presents jazz played by older, white men.  This group was a bit younger, though, I guess this being Canada, still the majority of the musicians in the group were white...

Sunday, however, I saw two Fringe shows.  The first was A Canadian Explains Eurovision to Other Canadians.  My wife got a kick out of this.  She is a pretty big Eurovision fan, and she said the guy knew his stuff, and she even learned a thing or two.  I have never really gotten that into Eurovision, probably mostly because I don't like watching TV for long stretches, no matter how "worthy" the subject.  And quite frankly, I don't have a lot of time for Eurovision until they do the right thing and kick Israel out, at least until they stop their all-out attacks on Gaza.  The show's creator, Matti McLean, sort of dances around this uncomfortable topic but doesn't let it spoil his appreciation for the spectacle of it all.

The last thing I watched was a sketch show by the Rhinoceros Collective.  One of the more distinctive aspects of this show was that it was broken in three parts.  Every skit in the first part dealt with cave men and prehistoric times.  The second part was all about chess.  And the last third was about the Illuminati (who knew that college students were still reading about the Illuminati these days!).  I thought the middle section was best, though the Illuminati dance was pretty funny as well.

I'm glad the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse is being used again.  I think it had one Fringe show in 2022, but generally hasn't been used that much since COVID days.  Maybe this means it will be back in circulation for other UT productions, just as I am hoping Hart House Theatre will start putting on full seasons again.

That was pretty much the extent of my Fringing this weekend.  I have a couple shows lined up for Monday (In the Diving Bell and The Adding Machine) and then two shows up at Tarragon on Tuesday.

I might be able to make it out to one or two more shows, but I think I've kind of hit my limit this year.

 

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!!!

Start of the Fringe

It looks like a moderately busy Fringe for me this year.  I started off seeing a musical called Iris (Says Goodbye) which seems inspired by Haley McGee's Age is a Feeling in that the possible lives that Iris could take over (after being reborn) are selected by the audience, so each performance is different.  Though in this case, each night you only see 8 out of 20 or so, which means it is extremely unlikely you would see them all, even if you went three times.  I lucked out and saw all (or maybe all but one) of the Age is a Feeling episodes.  It was a good idea and generally entertaining, though the band often overpowered the singers.  I don't feel obligated to rush back and see it a second time.

Friday, I am seeing three things at Video Cabaret (the first time they have been part of the Fringe), and if things go well, I should be able to sneak out and grab Thai food between the second and third plays of the evening. 

I actually don't have anything scheduled on Sat., and I might just take the time to recharge, or I might go to the Rex.  Hard to say at the moment.  I probably should swing by the AGO, as the Joyce Wieland exhibit has opened.

Sunday, I am going with my wife to a show about Eurovision (she's quite the fan) and then I need to bike over to UT to see a comedy sketch show.

It turns out that one of the Fringe sets would have interfered with yet another TO Summer Music concert, so I guess it is just as well that I waited until nearly the last minute (though I do have pretty sucky seats to see the New Orford String Quartet...).

Anyway, I have been up way too long today, since I did indeed wake up early and got that second coat of stain on the deck between 7 am and 8:30 am when I had to break and join a webinar.  (I suppose now I just need to dedicate a few hours each week to getting the back room straightened up to the point I won't be completely embarrassed if people tromp through it on the way to the bathroom, as I am tentatively planning on having people over for a BBQ on the 22nd, assuming it doesn't rain!  I am a bit frustrated that the city didn't take away this broken Adirondack chair, so I still need to deal with that, but otherwise the outside of the house is not too bad...)

As ever, global news just pisses me off, watching how the Orange One pulls off one heist after another (and the Supreme Court comes out with something else outrageous).  I really think any decent person needs to think seriously about leaving the U.S., though I realize that is easier said than done.  Given how thoroughly those scumbags are looting the Treasury, there won't be any Social Security funds left in 20 years, so I might as well renounce my citizenship.  I've looked into it but not that seriously, but I think it is time.  However, rather than dwell on this any longer, I think it is time to call it a night.

Frustrating Weekend

I suppose many, indeed most, weekends could be categorized as frustrating, given how many terrible things continue to go on in the world while truly terrible people remain in charge.  As one home-spun philosopher put it, people are no damn good.  

But in a nutshell, I managed to get my swimming in last Sat. (even though there was a very slow swimmer that got into the fast lane and then ran into me going the wrong way(!) and then there was a super aggressive swimmer that tried to swim up the middle when there was not enough room), but that was practically the highlight of the weekend, which should be taken as a warning sign that things continued to deteriorate.  I biked all the way over to High Park in order to meet up with some Hart House mentors.  I did see the Carlton streetcar sitting in the very countrified loop, which never fails to amuse me.  It is possible that I will take it all the way to the Shakespeare in High Park performance this summer, though unfortunately this loop is not well connected to the rest of the park, so I will have to think about that carefully.

I had assumed that this event had a bit more official backing, but in fact it was a totally casual thing organized by one mentor as a bit of a get-together.  Had I known this, I definitely would not have bothered, as there was a much more interesting event happening at 401 Richmond.  Anyway, I was exhausted by the time I got there and then was more than a little annoyed at how hard it was to find anyone.  Even though the directions said it was at the High Park Outdoor Pool, it wasn't there but across the road in a large picnic area.  I called and managed to find the organizer but a few others gave up and a few people cancelled.  So it was just the two of us, but I wasn't in the mood to hang out very long or do the poetry exercise that had been discussed.  To top it off, while I was cleaning up, it appears I managed to toss my bike gloves in the trash (on top of the pair I lost at The Fox, this has been a bad season for biking gloves).  

I turned around and biked back downtown.  (I will say the southern route, via the Queensway and then finally getting back to Queen via a bunch of detours was pretty sucky, compared to coming via Dundas or College to Howard Park Ave. and then finally over to High Park.)  I made decent time, but it was still 3 by the time I showed up and the event had ended.  Darn it.

Fortunately, the artist that I was most interested in meeting, Emily Zou, was still there.  I slowly cooled down from the ride, and we chatted for a while.  It appears that she was at the Outdoor Art Fest last year, though I have to admit I don't recall seeing her booth.  It looks like the Outdoor Art Fest is coming back in about a week and a half, so I'll have to leave a bit of room in my Fringe schedule for that.  (I have (finally) booked nearly all the Fringe shows I was interested in, though Cigarettes are Good for You has apparently sold out its whole run, and I might have to try to catch it as a Patron's Pick on the 13th...)  Anyway, Emily's artworks are currently made of recycled materials and reclaimed trash, including paintings that she felt were not up to snuff.

This piece was in the show at Gagne.

This piece was sort of held back in reserve.

Anyway, I did regret missing the artists' talk, but I did have a nice time meeting Emily.  I told her that she was on the same wavelength as Athena Papadopoulos's The New Alphabet from MOCA back in 2023, though she had not managed to catch that show.

Where things really got off track after that was I decided to try this hole in the wall sandwich shop on Spadina.  I was very clear that I wanted the cheese sandwich, as it was the only vegetarian option.  I got this sandwich that was sort of sealed up like a panini.  Within a bite, I realized something was dreadfully wrong.  The jerk had given me a cubano with ham.  So I spit that out, and then went over to the office to try to throw up as much as I could.  However, my stomach was already getting quite upset.  I have yet to do it, but I plan on giving that place a one-star review.  The rest of the day spiraled downhill from there.  I did swing by the Rex, and they weren't sure if there were any cancellations for the sold-out Ghost Note show, and I didn't feel like coming back.  Maybe it is just as well.

I decided to at least try to do a bit of the outdoor side of the jazz fest.  I wasn't that taken by the Anthony D'Alessandro Quartet but I did like this steel drum led trio.  (They started off with St. Thomas (one of Sonny Rollins's features) and ended with Caravan.)  

Then I went home to take a Tums and see how I felt the next morning.

Not surprisingly, I ended up making a very late start on Sunday.  I decided maybe I ought to sand the deck, but then I had to go buy safety goggles, as I just couldn't find the pair I used last time around.  I also bought one more can of stain in case I ran out halfway through.  One minor positive is that they finally reopened the cut-through from Home Depot (and the Planet Fitness) to Jones Ave.  This will slightly increase the likelihood that I go to the gym in the evenings after work, since I won't have to take the bridge twice.

Anyway, I did manage to get through the first pass at sanding.  (I had thought about going one last time to the jazz fest for a show at 4:30, but I wasn't feeling up to it, and I also didn't want to deal with any overspill of the Pride Parade onto Bloor.)  I went back to the mall around 7.  Almost everything was closed, but Home Depot was open, and I got finer grain sanding belts and some wood filler.  (It looks like there are two boards in the middle deck that really ought to be replaced, but I am going to try to wait for one more year...)  Then I went to the gym.  So it was a moderately productive day, but not really the end of the weekend that I had planned out...

Monday, I finally finished reading The Book of Lamentations.  It had its moments, but overall I didn't care for it all that much.  I did like the last few pages where one of the servants is retelling the story of the uprising but compressing it and distorting it in weird ways.  This also happens at the end of Melville's Billy Budd and is the entire point of Mr Burn's, A Post Electric Play.  (More and more, I kind of kick myself for skipping this when it was playing in the neighbourhood, and then I also missed on a chance to see it in Raleigh...)  I ended up biking to work just after noon!  I thought it was only going to be a light rain, but on the way home I got soaked.  Needless to say, I was in no mood to go swimming that evening, so I just read for a while.

Today, I did get to the gym early.  It was fairly busy and getting even busier when I left (it was closing at 1 today).  I'm currently partway through the sanding and should be able to finish sanding and staining the deck.  If I can accomplish that, then I won't fuss too much if I don't get much else done today.  So I'm off to try to wrap that up.  Anyhow, Happy Canada Day!

Edit (9 pm): Perhaps I should have gone a bit easier on the workout this morning.  I ended up sanding for 90+ minutes, and then it was 2 1/2 hours of staining the deck.  

A quarter of the way there (counting the railing)

 

About 2/3 done

Finished for now

My left arm is a bit sore, and who knows how it will feel tomorrow.  Now the forecast is changing so there is a threat of rain, which is super frustrating, but my current plan is to let this coat set, and then try to put on a second (and final) coat Thurs. morning.  (My neighbours are probably even more relieved that there is no more sanding in the near future!)  I'd say there is a reasonable chance I can get this done in 90 minutes on Thurs., as I won't be repainting the posts or side boards, only the top of the railing and the middle deck planks.  This should keep for another year or so, though I do think there are a few boards that will probably need to be replaced next year. 

I think that was more than enough activity for one day, though I did pump up my bike tires a bit, and I'll probably trim my hair.  I haven't decided if I am just going to read more Dombey and Son (still about 4 more hours to go) or watch Almodovar's Matador.  Whatever I do, I need to keep in mind the local fireworks show that will last for almost an hour!

Small Frustrations (Continued)

I have a post titled exactly like this from last month, but I suppose it is because so many days are filled with small frustrating things that even I recognize are small potatoes compared to all the truly terrible things going on in the world, like Trump selling out Ukraine or global warming making the planet unlivable for our children.  I am probably feeling even more raw than usual because we are sleep-walking into an election in Ontario where Doug Ford is going to get another sweeping and totally undeserved victory.  About the only tiny good news on the horizon is that at the federal level, we might be looking at another minority government for the Liberals, as Canadians have decided that PP is far, far too much like Trump for their taste.  Here's hoping anyway.  This turn of events might or might not sway me to finally get that tattoo I have been contemplating.  The truth is, not that I am so scared of the pain, but that I might not want to have a Canadian tattoo when I am fairly sure I will be fed up with Canada (as I am with everything else) before too long.  I am, however, wondering about getting a tattoo memorializing The Barbaric Yawp, which was a poetry magazine I was editor of for a few years while an undergraduate.  (I've been thinking about this episode in my life lately because it represents an intriguing road not taken...)  I'll scan a picture of the logo in the near future, since I would need one anyway to take to a tattoo parlour.

To get back to the point, it can actually be a very thin line separating a day that is predominantly frustrating versus one that was overall positive in my mind.  As a recent example, I have been having to work far too long at work with only occasional breakthroughs with far more setbacks lately, which colours pretty much everything.  I have been trying to get over to Carlton to see The Night is Short: Walk On Girl, and it was showing at 7 pm (and then maybe 9:45) Monday through Thurs.  It became fairly obvious that I was going to have to work late on Monday, and I briefly debated going to the late show but just went home.  Now I would likely have tried harder to go on Monday if there was even a chance I could see Mulholland Drive at the Revue on Tues., but the tickets were sold out and I didn't feel like standing in the rush line (like I did for Withnail and I).  So that meant I would shift Night is Short to Tues., though there was another potential snag in that I was roped into a work call with the L.A. office from 6-7, so I tried to find out if there was a place with free wifi around.  It actually didn't look promising at all, as this part of downtown is a Starbucks desert and the nearest Tim Hortons is very much an urban one with essentially no amenities.  I'm not even sure if it has a bathroom...

In the end, I ended up working until 5:50 on something else, so there wasn't any chance of getting up to College anyway, so I just (somewhat grumblingly) took the call from the office.  Fortunately, it wrapped up early (a rare occurrence!), and I had just enough time to make it to the theatre, slipping in during the previews for Mickey 17, which is looking like a movie that I would enjoy, so I'll plan on catching that in a few weeks when it opens.  The theatre was pretty full for a Tues. evening.  This is such a weird movie, but I think it may be my second favourite anime, right behind Paprika, which I'll watch again if it shows up at Carlton in the near future.  I was pretty hungry throughout, but overall the evening was a pretty good one as I managed to snatch some personal time back for myself.  I was even able to get to Bulk Barn, though this was after the show not before.  They were warning people, we are only open for 8 more minutes, then 5 more minutes, etc., but I was lightning fast and picked up some trail mix before they kicked everyone out.

So that made for a pretty good evening, though I did end up going to bed instead of writing up a short story for the Star's contest, and then I had hoped maybe to type it up Wed. over lunch (as the deadline was 5 pm) but ended up working straight through lunch and didn't even eat until 2:30, then went straight back into meetings.  While I did ultimately leave work at an almost reasonable time (6:30),* I never found the time to type this in (and indeed the story probably works better as a playlet than as a short story, not that I have found an outlet for my theatre writing since SFYS went dark yet again).  Anyway, I was still beating myself up a bit over this while I marched over to TIFF -- only to find that the 6:45 showing of Universal Language was sold out.  So incredibly frustrating.  This sort of thing just reinforces how frustrating I find TIFF in general and why I gave up my membership there.  I spent a bit of time going through the schedule of TIFF and The Fox, which is also showing Universal Language this week.  Go figure!  (I was hoping it might turn up at Market Square, which sometimes carries the movies around the same time as TIFF.**  It doesn't have Universal Language, but they are showing Anora, and I suppose I might try to check this out on Sunday, if I don't have anything else planned...)  It looks like the best bet is to try to catch Universal Language on Sat.  Either I can see it at The Fox at 1:45, or at TIFF at 12:45 (in the relatively roomy Theatre 3 where there are plenty of seats) or in Theatre 5 at 3:30, which is a pretty small and sometimes uncomfortable theatre (and it is about halfway sold out already).  If I was confident that I could bike, then I could commit to either 1:45 at the Fox or 12:45 at TIFF, but if I am stuck on the streetcars, it is a lot dicier because they are still diverting the Dundas streetcar, as far as I know.  While it warmed up a lot and the snow is receding, the streets were still far too messy for me to attempt to bike in.  It looks like the temperature is going to drop this weekend, and it will likely snow, so biking is probably out.  I would have to get to the swimming pool by 11 and leave by noon to have a shot at making it to the 12:45 TIFF showing, though I suppose I could plan on going to TIFF for that first showing, but if something went drastically wrong, I could reverse direction and make it to The Fox in time.  So I guess that is a workable back-up plan, though I have to remember that I can only take the subway to Osgoode (Queen) rather than St. Andrew, which is annoying though not a fatal flaw.  It would make going to Anora a lot more challenging, and clearly I would be better off biking or maybe taking the King streetcar than dealing with the subway and shuttle buses.  

Nonetheless, this spoiled my plans for the evening (and I was then feeling too grumpy to drop in at the Rex).  I was only slightly mollified that when I got home, I saw that two things I had ordered showed up.  One was the Blu-ray of La Notte.  I was starting to get a bit worried that it wasn't going to show up, so I'm quite glad it made it.  (I'm now only waiting on Lord Vishnu's Love Handles and a graphic novel called Street Cop.)  The Blu-ray is indeed really sharp.  Now that it is here, the next time I am at BMV, I can see if I can sell off my region 2 DVDs of La Notte and L'Avventura, hoping to get a bit more dosh back if they are sold as a set...  Also, I had decided to order a copy of Tory Dent's Collected Poems.  It wasn't entirely clear from the description if this actually was a collected (and essentially complete) poems or a selected, so I decided to gamble.  I would say in general, Tory Dent is not particularly well known, and if one thinks about poetry about the AIDS crisis, one turns to Thom Gunn's The Man with Night Sweats.  

As powerful as Gunn's book is, it is written from the perspective of one on the outside looking in.  Gunn was certainly impacted by AIDS, losing many, many friends, but he was HIV-negative (and died of a drug overdose (in his 70s!)).  Tory Dent is one of the only poets I am aware of, and certainly the only female poet, that wrote from the inside on what it was like to be living with AIDS.  As an aside, I would like to find a way to include her in my anthology (to do my part in buttressing her legacy) but none of her poems fit well and her preoccupations were so different that it almost seems insulting to try to pull out a poem that has a transportation angle (rather than about her journey and struggles with the medical establishment).  Anyway, the volume is indeed her collected work, including all the poems in her three collections, along with a handful of early unpublished poems.  

I did have to bump Ariel Dorfman's The Last Song of Manuel Sendero off the shelf to make room, so I will move that up on my brand-new reading list to make up for that.

In general, reading is going fairly well.  I have been reading a lot of poetry lately.  I did sort of give up on Jon Silkin.  I was just not finding his work that interesting even after reading 400 pages (out of about 800 in his massive Complete Poetry).  I finally settled on reading the remaining unpublished poems.  I have to admit that I did like some of his later poems more, but I am definitely not on his wavelength.

I generally am enjoying Wesley McNair, who is a New England poet.  He strikes me as a bit more engaged in the world than say, David Budbill, who is much more in the Gary Snyder vein.  McNair's Late Wonders has a trilogy of long narrative poems conflating his family's travails with the (declining) state of America.  I'm only just starting in on them, but they remind me of the impulse behind Updike's Rabbit novels.  I'm generally enjoying Lynn Emanuel's work as well.  I think I just need a sustained push to get through some Wanda Coleman books, and then I can finally return to novels (Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time and then I think Gide's Lafcadio's Adventures immediately follows, though I probably should read Bradley's The Ministry of Time as soon as my copy turns up at the reserve desk at Robarts).  Tonight, I venture over to the Theatre Centre to check out Monks, which I never was able to see at last year's Fringe.  For once I have the tickets to a sold out show...  Given the trip out there is so long, I can catch up on a bit more of my reading.  Unless there is another unforeseen disruption (or they try to force me to work past 6:45 tonight), the omens are generally positive for today (aside from the fact that Ford will be re-elected, which of course is a major, major downer, though there is nothing I can do about it).

* I'm not the only one that is generally working too long these days.  The newly inaugurated book club at work had to push the meeting off by a week because no one could make it.  I suspect this will be a monthly issue, but we shall see

** Still so annoyed that Rumours disappeared after such a short run.  I could have scrambled my schedule a bit and probably saw it at either TIFF or Market Square, though I think that was a week I was travelling for work, which made it particuarly hard.  Rumours has finally come out on DVD, and I put a hold on a copy through TPL, so maybe will get to watch that by the summer...)

Last Day of the Fringe

On a more positive note, I've been off seeing quite a few Fringe shows.  I even went to a children's show (Madame Winifred's Circus of Wonders).  I had thought it would be aimed at a slightly older crowd, but it was squarely aimed at children under 10, and wasn't quite as interesting or charming for the adults in the crowd.  I would highly recommend it for children, however.  It actually is coming back with an extra show on Sunday at 3 pm as a Patron's Pick.

I really enjoy the sketch show You Lost Me at Alumnae.  I saw this on Friday.  It looks like they have a few tickets left for Sunday at 5 pm.  It's a young cast with lots of energy doing different sketches, including a Zoom office call that turns into a rave, and listening to classic rock on the radio where every artist is singing about having a 13 year old girlfriend.  (The 70s really were a different time...)  

I also enjoyed the two improv shows I managed to see -- All Our Parents are Immigrants (and indeed I think this is basically the same show I saw in Aki Studio a few years back) and Before We Go, which is about what happens on the last night of the world.  I managed to get in to see both of them another time, which is often worth doing as improv is always so different between shows!  Immigrants runs tomorrow at noon (a few tickets left) and Before We Go at 1:45, so I will have to rush between the venues on my bike, but it should be doable.  It does look like the last show of Before We Go is sold out.  (Great for them, but not for you...)

I had debated going to see Gringas, but kind of hesitated, and then the reviews came in really strong.  However, the best day for me to see it was Wed. at 7, and it was sold out.  If the Sat. show had been a bit later, I could have seen it right after Madame Winifred, but I just needed a bit more time between sets.  At any rate, I looked first thing this morning, and Gringas had one more show added as Patron's Pick at 7:45 on Sunday, so I scooped up a ticket.  Score!  (My lucky 13th show of this year's Fringe!)  It appears there are still a few available.  So that will be a good way to round out the Fringe, even though tomorrow is quite busy!  I'm also going to squeeze in Bus Stop, a murder mystery set at a Toronto bus stop, and Death of a Starman, which is about an astrologer on the run from the mob.  I haven't really heard much about either of them, though, given that the reviewers are thin on the ground these days, that is kind of to be expected though certainly unfortunate...

I did hear positive things about Monks but just couldn't find a way to see that.  I hadn't really wanted to see 86 Me, which is about the Toronto restaurant business, as I got a bit triggered by the raccoon.  It did get quite good reviews, however. Maybe if either of them transfer somewhere else (like Crow's Theatre), I might try to check them out.  On the whole it was a pretty good Fringe, which is great.  I've more or less given up on SummerWorks, as they barely have any traditional plays at all any more.

The rest of Sat. was pretty full.  I ran right over to BMV and managed to sell off a few more CDs and DVDs.  I'm slowly making a dent in the stacks of random things in the back office.  Oddly enough, they wouldn't take Rushdie's Victory City, which is his very latest novel (well, not counting Knife).  Maybe they got a bunch of them remaindered or something.  All I know is when I was looking to pick up a copy, nobody had them in stock, so I had to order a copy, and now it isn't worth anything.  Fudge.

I put in about an hour of work at Robarts, then ran down to The Rex to see the Chris Hunt Tentet.  It was sort of absurd seeing them all crowded together on the bandstand.  

Generally they were a bit too loud for my taste.  I only got about half a page of my planning saga written, whereas last Thurs (when I saw Neil Swainson with Dick Oatts), I managed 10 pages!  I also dropped off a copy of a Woody Shaw CD to Neil, since he had never seen or heard of this release, so that made it especially worth going out.  

Today, I left after the first set, and then ran over to the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair (which runs Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm).  I saw a few pieces I liked quite a bit.

This artist, Ximena Montecino, is heavily influenced by Alice in Wonderland.

This artist had a whole series of paintings and etchings of a fairly creepy merry-go-round.

Oleg Lipchenko, Carosello Divina - Carousel V

.

This artist, Zia Syed, made three dimensional friezes of architectural elements of imagined cities (not entirely dissimilar to Calvino).  I'm very tempted by the piece on the left, but I am trying to hold off on buying any more art for the time being.  Maybe I'll sleep on it and see how I feel in the morning.

If I had a bit more time, I probably would have dropped in on the TMU Image Centre. I probably have seen their current exhibits but am not 100% sure. Next weekend, I am hoping to get back to The Power Plant and the AGO to show my son the modernism exhibit they are running, esp. the Rothko (back on view for the first time in ages!). If there is time, maybe we can swing by 401 Richmond as well.

Mark Rothko, No. 1, White and Red, 1962

So in the end, it was a pretty busy day, and tomorrow is even more jam packed.  I probably ought to get some rest, so I am not dragging all day...

Super Busy Day vs. Cruddy Day

Sat. was just so busy that it really put a bit of a crimp in the rest of the long weekend.

The morning started out with quite heavy rain, which meant that I didn't get over to the gym as soon as I had planned.  I finally braved it around 9.  I only went for a fairly short workout, as I mostly wanted to see what the Sunday hours were, and I also wanted to use the lower back stretching machine, as it has the side effect of loosening my rib cage.  (I still haven't written about the fact that I had a small accident on the bike(!), leaving me a very bruised knee and some extreme tightness in the chest, as if my ribs were collapsing a bit on my lungs!  I'll definitely circle back to this in a bit here...)  I grabbed a few snacks at the grocery store and came back.  

It was still sprinkling a bit, but I figured there was no way to get everything done on the TTC, so I risked the bike again.  I went to Jones Library and grabbed a copy of Shelley's Frankenstein, since my daughter is reading it for English class.  Then I went over to the Regent Park pool, though it was already 12:30 and lane swimming ended at 1, so this was cutting things very short.  This time around the pool was staffed much better (than the previous weekend), and it looked like the whirlpool area was working again.  (A few weeks back I learned that it was back in service after being broken for literally years, but then it wasn't running last weekend, which was a disappointment.)  I was able to get in 12 or even 13 laps and then spent a few minutes in the whirlpool.

Then I biked down to the Distillery to check out the Corkin Gallery (and also Thompson Landry, but I was mostly there to see the Riopelle exhibit at the Corkin).  It turns out they extended one last time, so you should be able to check it out through July 6 and maybe just slightly beyond that.  If you are at all interested, it is worth doing, as there are a number of small pieces there from early in his career (1948-49) that are not in any other catalogue of his work.  Our of curiosity I asked what they would cost.  The answer was $57,000 each.  I mean they are definitely nice, but that's a pretty silly price for a small watercolor.

Jean-Paul Riopelle, Sans titre, 1948

It was starting to rain a bit harder, so I decided to bike over to work where I could stash my bike.  I put in about an hour of work, then caught the subway up to Bay.  Then I walked over to the library at Yorkville where I picked up the DVD version of Frankenstein.  Then I crossed the street to the Reference Library.  I was looking to scan a few pages that had been ripped out of the only circulating copy of Toronto Places.  They apparently have 3 copies of Toronto Places in the Reference Library, and I was able to grab it off the stacks and scan those pages.  (The quality isn't quite what I hoped for, but it's ok.)

It was nearly 4, and I had hoped to watch an animated movie over at Carlton called Night is Short, Walk on Girl.

It was weird as hell.  Basically, imagine a slightly less fraught After Hours, and some amazing time-dilation to allow everything to fit into one evening: lots and lots of drinking, a wedding, stopping by a used-book market, multiple episodes of musical put on by a guerilla theatre company and then lots and lots of visits to friends who had caught a super-contagious cold.  I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it was definitely strange but fun.

After this, I stopped by Bulk Barn to stock up on Tootsie Rolls, then took the subway down to Union Station, grabbed a snack at Kibo Market, then retrieved my bike from the garage and biked home.  I was pretty much down for the count, but I did manage to do a load of laundry.  So really quite exhausting.

Sunday, I didn't do nearly as much, though I did get to the gym for a more typical workout, and then I got the groceries for the week.  I had thought pretty seriously about going to Harbourfront to see the TSO in a free show, but the timing was just not great (a 9 pm start!), and I had no idea what they were actually going to perform, so I bailed.

Today was Canada Day, and I was glad to try to get caught up on a few things.  However, the nagging feeling that Doug Ford will still be in charge next year, and then most likely the Conservatives will take over Ottawa gives me a sick feeling in my stomach.  I'm definitely not going to be proud to be a Canadian under those conditions, even if it is still much better than living in the State.  I am definitely thinking of holding off on that tattoo!  

Like pretty much everyone else I knew, I was just sickened by how badly Biden did in the debate, though I didn't make the mistake of watching it!  As if that weren't enough, the Supreme Court just ruled to make Presidents kings.  On top of some other completely shitty rulings last week, including one that will make it impossible for the federal government to rely on, you know, expertise, rather than the poorly written excuse for legislation that comes out of Congress these days.  It's as if the conservatives on the Supreme Court have completely lost their minds and decided to make the U.S. completely ungovernable past anything that the Founding Fathers would have accepted.  The sad truth is that the Founding Fathers did know better than these fools, particularly Alito who opens wants a religious theocracy in place of what the Constitution actually says.  I mean the Founders were entirely clear on the reasons why religion should be kept completely out of the political sphere, and indeed that the President wasn't supposed to be a king.  I really can't express how much contempt I have for them.  I actually felt sick to my stomach pretty much all morning.  Along with the rise of the right all over Europe (and the fact that no politician will ask for even the smallest sacrifice to slow down climate change) and it all feels completely pointless.  The world is truly fucked.

So my mood was completely crap all day, and I certainly didn't feel like celebrating anything.  I did manage to finally finish Rushdie's Victory City.  In some ways it feels a bit like a rehash of The Enchantress of Florence, though the ending was a bit better than many of his endings.  (I liked quite a bit of Fury, including some riffs on Shakespeare, but the ending was lame.)  It just dragged on a bit too long, since I wasn't reading on the way to work, but I'm glad I finished it.

My computer has been given me more and more issues, and today the DVD burner crapped out.  I suspect it is something to do with the Windows 10 updates that keep forcing themselves onto the computer, but I think it's just time to transfer everything over to yet another hard drive, and buy a new machine.  The worst thing was I had thought this was a computer I had replaced a bit after my move to Toronto, but no!  I bought this computer in Dec. 2020, so it isn't even 4 years old, and it is already ready for the scrap heap.  So disappointing.  I remember just how many programs I need to port over, and it just pisses me off even more.

There's probably not much else I can get done today.  I may attempt to work on a paper I am giving at the TRB Equity conference in Baltimore in about 3 weeks, though I am more likely to finish up Satyajit Ray's The Adversary (the first film in his Calcutta Trilogy).  I have finally decided that it is kind of silly to run over to Montreal to see one act at the Montreal Jazz Fest, particularly when I am in such a bad mood.  There is a halfway decent exhibit on Hiroshige at the MMFA, but I've seen a lot of his prints, including on my last trip to San Francisco in April.  If I can swing it some other time (it closes in early Sept.), then I might go.  So on the whole, I think I'll just stay home and sulk instead (and probably book a few extra Fringe shows, since that is coming up fast this week!).

Best Theatre of 2023

I use these theatre round-up pages to list everything that was meritorious rather than trying to limit the list to 5 or 10 best productions.  Just compiling the list is useful, as many of these in the first half of the year had slipped out of my memory banks completely.  But with some prompting, some of the details are coming back.  It doesn't appear I saw or did too much in Jan., so this upcoming Jan. is going to be quite a change!

Feb.
Things I Know to Be True (Mirvish)
Yerma (Coalmine)
King Lear (Shakespeare Bash'd @ Theatre Centre)
The Prodigal (Crow's Theatre)

March
The Baltimore Waltz (UT production at Factory Theatre)
“I love the smell of gasoline” by Claren Grosz (Lee Daniels Spectrum)

April
Vierge (Factory Theatre)
Low Pay? Don't Pay (George Brown)

May
Boom X (Crow's Theatre)
The Sound Inside (Coalmine)
She's Not Special (Tarragon)
Sizwe Banzi is Dead (Soulpepper)

June
I went to some poetry events like the Griffin Prize Awards ceremony and a reading at the Tranzac club.  I did see a show at Alumnae that was like a warm up for the Fringe but it doesn't quite make the cut.

July
Toronto Fringe - I saw so very many Fringe shows this year.  One of the better ones was a musical about the Zodiac and then one about a mail-order bride-to-be.  The Gay Agenda was good, as well as Good Old Days and Miss Titaverse.  I wrote up some mini-reviews at the time.

August
Midsummer's Night's Dream (Canadian Stage @ High Park)
Edward II (Stratford)
Les Belles-Soeurs (Stratford) - ok but sadly not as good as a community theatre production I saw in Peterborough!
Grand Magic (Stratford)
Gilgamesh (Soulpepper) - the great musical numbers were the real reason to see this production
Living with Shakespeare (final show out of almost 25 years of Driftwood's Bard on the Bus tours)

Sept.
The Master Plan (Crow's Theatre)

Oct.
Speaking of Sneaking (Buddies)
Spaciousness (site specific show at Fort York!)
Wildwoman (Soulpepper)
A Terrible Fate (Videocab/Crow's)
Doc Wuthergloom's Here There Be Monsters (Eldritch Theatre @ Red Sandcastle)

Nov.
Arden of Faversham (Shakespeare Bash'd @ Monarch Tavern) - a staged reading
The Lehman Brothers Trilogy (Canadian Stage)
Withrow Park (Tarragon)

Dec. 
Arcadia (Bedlam Players in NYC)
Monster/Here Lies Henry double-bill (Factory)
Hypothetical Baby (Tarragon)
Angels in America, Pts 1 & 2 (Buddies)
Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 (Crow's)

I did not like a number of "edgy" productions that the critics raved about, particular Fairview and Topdog/Underdog (both at Canadian Stage) and The Land Acknowledgement (at Crow's and later Mirvish), which Karen Fricker just raved about but I found dishonest and fairly tedious.

I truly disliked Howland's production of Heroes of the Fourth Turning.  I can't think of anything I actually liked about this, starting with the fact it was 2 hours with no intermission.  But mostly I didn't want to spend any time, let alone two hours, with a bunch of hard-core Catholic anti-abortion agitators.  I truly don't see any point in understanding their point of view.  I fully get where they are coming from, but I reject their attempts to impose their worldview on others who don't accept their moral precepts.  Understanding them better will not actually lead to some sort of hard-won consensus around abortion and abortion rights.  Instead the only thing to do is reinforce the political structure so that it rejects, with prejudice if necessary, those who claim the right to interfere with a woman's bodily autonomy in the name of religion.  (Incidentally, Hypothetical Baby was a much better piece of theatre that grappled with moral choices around abortion in a way that was thought-provoking and empowering; in other words, the reverse of Heroes of the Fourth Turning...)

I was a bit disappointed in Arcadia, mostly the contemporary scenes, which felt a bit shout-y at times.  But it is such an intricate play that I need to see it whenever it is produced.  Interestingly, it was playing in Raleigh, NC around the same time as the Bedlam production.  I likely would have preferred going to Raleigh and also seeing some relatives down there.  The flipside is I saw world-class museums in NYC, including stumbling across a compact Max Beckmann show at the Neue Gallerie.

Max Beckmann, The Bark, 1926

The most ambitious production was surely the two-part Angels in America at Buddies in Bad Times.  I thought they really pulled it off, though not everyone agreed.  Perhaps the single best thing I saw was The Master Plan at Crow's, followed by Sizwe Bansi is Dead and then perhaps Angels in America.  The Baltimore Waltz was surprisingly solid for a student production.  Wildwoman was quite good, and seeing it as a full production (not just the staged reading they put on mid-pandemic) really brought it to life.  I also liked Vierge quite a bit at Factory, and then the back-to-back monologues (slightly tweaked by the author Daniel MacIvor) with Here Lies Henry being the stronger of the two.  In general, I liked almost everything Factory put on (aside from Armadillos where I actually left at the intermission) and most of what Crow's Theatre put on, aside from Heroes of the Fourth Turning.  At Canadian Stage, it was basically a 50-50 split with a few strong pieces and then a couple I really disliked/hated.

I'm sad that Hart House Theatre really hasn't committed to putting on its own season, and I don't really know what the hold-up is.  I also was disappointed that Videocab didn't do The Cold War Part II in 2023, but I hold out some hope that they'll stage this in the summer of 2024.  My biggest personal disappointment is that Sing-for-Your-Supper never actually kicked off again.  There are hints it might restart in Jan., but I'll believe it when it actually happens...

I might circle back with more comments later, but this gives a pretty good flavour of my year in theatre.

Fringe Patron Picks

If you go here, you can find which shows were Patron Picks and have one final show added today.  I have no idea if there are tickets or these are already sold out.

I will note that I saw 3 of these at this Fringe (Mail Ordered, Blake and Clay and Ms. Titaverse) and then Aliya Kanani last year.  I'm tempted to see her tonight, but I do have other plans.  In any case, all 4 of these are interesting shows (with Mail Ordered having a particularly good blend of audience participation with plants mixed in with real audience members -- to say more would just spoil things).  Also Good Old Days has one more matinee today at 2:45, and I think there are still some tickets for that.  

I actually spoke to one of the cast members of Good Old Days, Brianna Wright, while we were both waiting to go into Ms. Titaverse.  Ms. Titaverse was great, with one of the first songs, They Call Me Suplada, kicking it off in style.  I am not in touch with those cast members, though I did say hello at the opening night party.  If I were, I would recommend that they all get these necklaces...

Anyway, it was a good Fringe for me.  I hope next year is as entertaining.  I'm nowhere near as inspired by Summerworks (which seems to have almost completely abandoned traditional theatre in favour of happenings and workshops/lectures), though I'll probably see I am Your Spaniel, which sounds like it was developed through Buddies in Bad Times -- and really ought to be presented there rather than out at the Theatre Centre.  Lady M sounds like something I should see (a reworking of MacBeth focusing on Lady MacBeth), but I simply know that I am going to be so thrown off by the focus on this being a deaf-led production that I won't be able to immerse myself into it.  It's clearly my own limitations and hang-ups.  It also doesn't help that it's also showing at the Theatre Centre, and I am really trying to limit my trips out there until the Queen streetcar reverts to a more normal schedule (probably 2 or 3 years from now!!!).

Fringe Reviews

This is the last weekend of the Toronto Fringe.  I don't think I've seen any dogs, though there is one show that didn't quite live up to my expectations.  I really will try to circle back with more detailed reviews, but here are a few recommendations.  Hopefully there are still a few dates -- and tickets still available on those dates.*  

Here are just a few highlights, and I do apologize for passing over so many deserving shows...

Good Old Days over at Theatre Passe Muraille.  This is a two-hander about two former roommates who had a major falling out and how they reconnect a few years later.  Much of the piece is in sort of a dreamlike fugue-state, and both actors play multiple characters.  I agree with this reviewer who said there is a bit of an After Hours vibe going on.

I enjoyed Constellation Prize a lot.  This is a musical about a 13th constellation that yearns to be accepted into the Zodiac.  It's over at Aki Studio in Regent Park.  There are still shows on the 15th and 16th.    

Miss Titaverse is getting good reviews. I see it on Sat. (tomorrow) at Theatre Passe Murraille, but I feel pretty confident in this recommendation.  I think most of the shows are sold out, however. 

Blake & Clay's Gay Agenda is another triumph for this pair.  I suspect this is completely sold out for its remaining shows.  Last year, they brought Gay for Pay to Crow's Theatre after the Fringe (reworking it and expanding it slightly).  I hope that happens again in this case, as I would definitely come again (see what I did there...).  I actually missed the first five minutes or so because Line 2 was having one of its too-predictable meltdowns and I had to bail and catch a taxi up to Tarragon.  Needless to say, I was incredibly pissed but glad that they let me in at all (and I wasn't even heckled, not that I didn't deserve it...).  I'll probably write another time about yesterday, which was extremely frustrating but at least it ended with two very funny Fringe shows.  (Sarah and Racquel Rule the World was also very good, but I think also very sold out...)

Aliya Kanani is very funny and manages to tackle touchy subjects in an amusing way (similar to Blake and Clay actually).  Again, it is very possible that the remaining shows sold out, but there may be availability on Sunday.  I actually saw her on the opening night event and wanted to ask if she had changed up the show at all, or it was the same as last year's set, but she kind of flew on out of the venue and didn't stop to schmooze.  In the end, I decided it probably wasn't going to be fresh enough to see it twice, but I would definitely recommend this show for anyone that didn't go last year.

Finally, No One Special at the Tarragon Theatre Solo Room is a comedic look at growing up as an immigrant in Toronto from one of the writers responsible for Kim's Convenience.  The Sunday show is sold out.  There may be seats at the 8:30 show tonight.  Good luck!

Happy Fringing!

* I will say that there's been a major shift over the years in terms of booking policies.  When I first did the Fringe, over 20 years ago, almost everything was show up last minute at the door.  Even five or so years ago, they made a point of reserving a few seats for last minute walk-ups, but that is completely gone.  There were quite a few shows completely selling out their entire runs on the first or second day of ticket sales!  I don't mind this that much, but it does require a very different approach to planning the Fringe and makes it hard to be spontaneous.  Also, it is definitely harder to use the artist passes, not that this impacts me this year. 

Culture Catch-Up (July 2023 Edition)

I'm not going to delve into the museums I saw on my trip to Boston and New York.  That will have to wait for another day.  (Famous last words...)

Anyway, I've been seeing a lot of movies (in actual movie theatres!).  So far I managed to see My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away and The Wind Rises (a woman next to me was bawling her eyes out over this one).  I should have seen Kiki's Delivery Service while I was in NYC, but there wasn't a single theatre in Manhattan or Brooklyn showing it.  Weird (and sad for kids in New York City).  I'm going to try to see Castle in the Sky in mid-July, though it will likely conflict with my Toronto Fringe schedule,* and Howl's Moving Castle in last Sept.  Carleton Cinema is supposedly showing Paprika in mid July (it was sold out at TIFF) and Grave of the Fireflies, perhaps in early Sept.  I'll just have to try to remember to keep checking on those two.

I finally managed to get back and see Raiders of the Lost Ark at TIFF and Indiana Jones 3 at Carleton.  I'm probably going to see #5 tomorrow at Beach Cinema.  I saw Past Lives and Asteroid City last weekend.  (There were certainly interesting moments in Asteroid City, but I could have lived without the two framing devices.)  Back on Victoria Day, I saw Amarcord for the first time, as I detailed here.  On top of all this, I've been getting over to the Paradise, esp. for films presented by the Queer Cinema Club.  I saw The Bitter Tears of Petra Van Kant.  Sadly, I wasn't able to make Almodovar's Law of Desire (because it conflicted with an Esprit Orchestra concert), but I saw Bad Education last Friday and will see All About My Mother this Thurs.  (I'm hoping my son can join me, but we'll see.)  Oh, I also ran over to the Japanaese Canadian Cultural Centre for two films in their Japanese Film Festival: The Fish Tale and Plan 75 (about offering euthanasia to Japan's seniors!).  I will say that they have the most amazing snack bar in town!

It's ancient history now, but I managed to see the TSO perform Messiaen's Turangalîla-symphonie in early May.  I'm pretty sure I saw Tafelmusik at least once in May or early June.  We actually saw them doing a free concert at the Toronto Music Garden (before the Tears for Fears concert in fact), though it was very crowded and they only got the speakers working in the second half!

I saw a few free acts at the Toronto Jazz Fest (the Trash Pandas and Mark Kelso & the Jazz Exiles), plus paid to see Pat LaBarbera with Neil Swainson on bass at The Rex.  That was a good show.  I'm seeing quite a few shows that are part of Toronto's Summer Music Festival.  Between that and the Toronto Fringe I'll hardly have any free time in the first half of July!

I mentioned that I enjoyed Boom X and The Sound Inside in late May.  I also plugged Sizwe Bansi is Dead over at Soulpepper, which is currently the best play I saw this year.  I did not like Armadillos over at Factory (leaving at intermission) and was somewhat gratified that neither Lynn Slotkin nor Glenn Sumi seemed that taken with the show.  Slotkin also suggests that Stoppard's On the Razzle isn't a particularly good production, which helps confirm my decision to skip this (and Shaw entirely) this summer.  In about 6 weeks, I'll be going to Stratford to see Richard II, Trembley's Les Belles-Soeurs and de Fellipo's Grand Magic.  I believe I chose wisely...

I'll pull together a post soon on updates to all the signed poetry books I now have.  It was a productive few weeks, as I saw poets reading at Word on the Street, the Griffin Poetry Prize award ceremony (still sad that Sharon Olds got shut out) and a reading at the Tranzac Club.

Finally, I managed to get over to 401 Richmond yesterday to see the opening of Nina Amin's show at Yumart.  The show is split between abstract works and then works that are layered with calligraphy in different languages.  I was pretty taken by this piece (and others as well), but I also wonder how much I would like them after living with them for a while.

Nina Amin, Listener, 2023

I then ran over to the AGO, but I kept the visit short, since I only had 30 minutes left before the free transfer on my Presto card ran out.  I'll be back another time to watch the whole video that is part of the Wolfgang Tillmans show.  It closes Oct. 1, so I have plenty of time.  I had hoped to see the Infinity Room one more time before it gets packed up and shipped to another city, but all the slots were full.  C'est la vie.

Today, I think I will be less ambitious, but I probably will stop by MoCA and The Power Plant to see the new exhibits.  I also have to get back to Hart House one more time before July 22 when their summer exhibits are packed up.  

No question I have been staying busy.  It's a bit exhausting just to try recalling everything I have been up to!

* I had to make major changes in my Fringe schedule to fit in everything and still keep the 10th open just in case they show Castle in the Sky as part of Ghibli Fest.  I'll be more than a little disappointed if it doesn't turn up somewhere like Yonge & Eglinton, but it is starting to look unlikely, which is a major bummer.