Concerts in 2017

I won't attempt to list all the concerts I went to, particularly the classical ones.  I'm sure I could probably reconstruct it, but it seems too much of a bother.  (I also don't think I wrote a year-end round-up of concerts for 2016, which would have included one of the final Hip shows and Sarah McLachlan at the Toronto Jazz Fest. Also, Steve Reich at 80 was a once-in-a-lifetime event.)

Relatively early in the year, I saw the Kronos Quartet in March, though they were only on for part of the show, as I mentioned here.

April I saw Dengue Fever opening for Tinariwen!  This was a great show, despite the somewhat uncomfortable seating at Massey Hall.  This is quite likely the last time I will be there before it is shut down for reconstruction, though I suppose I might be tempted to come out if an amazing act turns up.

At the end of April, I saw Amici doing Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time.  I actually saw them play the same piece (one of my favourites) back in 1994!  How time flies...

I actually saw two performances of Carmina Burana.  I somewhat preferred the local version (in a church right on Danforth) that used a reduced score for percussion quartet, two pianos and a few string instruments, at least in part because I sat closer and also because I took my son, who was totally blown away.  It didn't hurt that the percussion quartet was TorQ, who did some of their own pieces in the first half of the show.  The full orchestral version, by the TSO, in June was also good, but not as much of a special event.

In September, we saw Depeche Mode at the ACC, which was a good show, though I do wish they had played a bit more off of Playing the Angel.

I also saw Lowest of the Low at the Danforth Music Hall.  This was the CD release party for Do the Right Now, so they played a lot of songs off that album, including my favourite track: "Powerlines."

In October, we went back to the Danforth Music Hall and saw the Psychedelic Furs.  This was a fun show, where they definitely played all the hits.  We had a good time and felt almost twenty (well late twenties) again.

In Nov. I saw Arcade Fire at the ACC.  This was a great show, and it really made me appreciate the last album, Everything Now, much more.*  I was fairly disturbed by the too-friendly woman standing next to me (and yes we had to stand the entire concert because everyone in our section was standing) who kept talking to me and occasionally trying to get me to dance and was generally not very respectful of my personal space (such as it was).

The day before U.S. Thanksgiving, I went and saw 54-40 (for the first time ever) at the Horseshoe Tavern (also my first time there).  It was a great show, though it did take the lead singer a bit of time to really get going.  My biggest regret was that my neighbours and I had tried to coordinate but ultimately went on different nights...

Then just a few nights ago I went and saw The Lowest of the Low again, but at the Horseshoe this time.  It almost didn't happen.  I kind of dithered around for a while, then when I went to buy tickets, the show was sold out!  On the day of the concert, I was looking up something about the band and I saw that someone on Twitter was trying to sell a ticket.  It took a bit of back and forth, and I didn't pick up the ticket until the very last minute, but I managed to get in -- and get a seat at one of the tables towards the back.

It was another excellent show.  No one has posted the set list yet, but hopefully they will.  They didn't play as many songs off Do the Right Now.  Of course, they did play "Powerlines." There's a small chance that they played "Gerona Train" again.  But then the other songs were not the ones they played at Danforth Music Hall.  I know they played "The Hard Way" and I'm pretty sure "Minuteman" and just possibly "Sister Jude."  I don't think they played "Something to Believe In" or "California Gothic," which is too bad, as those are good songs, but perhaps just a bit too "soft" for a rocking show.  Off of Hallucigenia they played "City Full of Cowards," "Black Monday" and probably "Eating the Rich" and "Beer, Graffiti Walls."  They didn't play "Gamble," which they played back in September.  From Sordid Fiction, they played "The Last Recidivist" and possibly "Giulietta The Just."  Somewhat surprisingly, they didn't play "The Kids Are All Wrong."  I guess they just haven't integrated this into their live shows.  Of course, most people were there to hear songs off of Shakespeare My Butt, and the band didn't disappoint: "Salesmen, Cheats and Liars," "Bleed a Little While Tonight," "Under the Carlaw Bridge," "Henry Needs a New Pair of Shoes" (first time I heard Carlaw Bridge or this one live -- and it was certainly cold enough to justify it) and then the final song of the encore was "Rosy and Grey."  There are a few that they probably played, but I am just not enough of a fan to know the songs instantly while they were playing them.  So they probably played "For the Hand of Magdelena" or "The Taming of Carolyn," but I don't think they played both.  They probably played "Just About 'The Only' Blues" and maybe another song or two.  I do hope someone puts up a solid set-list before too long.**  Anyway, I've heard two quite good shows, with one basically ringing out 2017, and that may be sufficient for me, though never say never.

Sadly, one can't do or see everything.  I generally had been following TorQ but there was a long stretch where they hadn't updated their concert schedule, so I missed a CD release concert back in Nov. (the day before the 54-40 concert, so I might not have gone anyway) and apparently, they are doing a New Year's Eve concert, probably starting right about now!  While that would have been incredibly cool, it is up in Richmond Hill and the odds of me going to that are 0%.  I do see they have a few shows that I might be able to make in 2018, so I'll try to pencil those in, along with the other interesting concerts that should make 2018 a worthy successor to 2017.

Happy New Year!!!



* Edit (1/1/2018) I keep forgetting to post this photo.  We ran across this logo painted in a lot on Danforth, not far from Greenwood.  It certainly looks like part of a guerilla marketing campaign for Arcade Fire's Everything Now, but there wasn't any indication of how to follow up to buy the band's merchandise.  Also, this was pretty far from the ACC, so again I don't really get it.

 
** Setlist posted here.  I do have a few quibbles.  I simply do not remember California Gothic, but maybe they played a different arrangement that didn't start with three-part harmony.  Doesn't really matter.  A fine show, and I'm glad I made it.

11th Canadian Challenge - 13th review - After Class

Since I read the two plays in this volume (After Class by George F. Walker) a while back (while waiting for the furnace repair guy in fact), I probably should write up the review before the year ends.  This probably isn't the fastest I've gotten to 13 (for the Canadian Challenge), but it is right up there.  I was fortunate enough to see both of the plays in this book (Parents Night and The Bigger Issue) back in 2015 at Theatre Passe Muraille, but the scripts weren't published until 2017.  Reading the scripts brought back much of the craziness that went on on stage.  Not all George F. Walker plays involve outsized events and crazed interactions between characters (notably the Bobby and Tina plays, particularly the third one, are more restrained), but most of them do.  It is somewhat difficult to capture this on the page; also the charisma of the actors can sometimes make the horrible things they do or say (or say they will do) marginally more palatable. That said, it isn't often that new George Walker plays are staged outside of Toronto* and Vancouver, so reading them is probably the more realistic option for many.

Walker seems to tackle certain issues in cycles, and he seems to be working through two different sets of issues right now: the state of urban education and the plight of the mentally ill now that the State has deeply cut resources for mental health (not that he ever had great things to say about the previous system).  Parents Night and The Bigger Issue are both about urban education, essentially focusing on how teachers are being forced to deal with many issues affecting their students that are beyond their individual capability of dealing with (let alone "solving") and, truly, beyond the institutional capability of the school system as a whole.  Walker has promised that these two plays are the start of a larger cycle about urban education, but it isn't clear just how many plays this will ultimately entail (and indeed he probably doesn't know at the moment).

There are a few pressing issues that are not addressed at all: increasing violence against teachers (fortunately still extremely rare but not as unthinkable as it once was), students on drugs, students with language barriers and the increase of distractions in the classroom (cell phones but also laptops where they are allowed).  What Walker does tackle at some level is a general erosion of respect towards teachers (perhaps this should always be earned rather than granted as a matter of course, but it is very difficult to teach if the teacher is not considered an authority figure), the sometimes malign influence of parents on children's well-being and their interest/ability to learn, students with behavioural issues that cause major disruptions in the classroom, and the frustrating edicts** that come down from higher up that interfere with teachers' preferred modes of instruction and interaction with children.  Interestingly, Walker notes in the introduction that his wife is a teacher, so presumably he has synthesized and distilled years of her stories from the front, but then put the Walker spin on things.  In a sense, it is a bit surprising he hasn't tackle urban education sooner, perhaps largely because many of the lower-class characters he was writing about dropped out of school early on, with only Tina finding the strength to continue her education (as a teenager with a baby no less!).  It is also possible that Walker is somewhat expanding the range of characters he writes about, so he writes more scenes of middle and upper middle class characters interacting with lower class characters.  In turn, this may have made the school system more interesting as at some (but by no means all) urban schools there is more class mixing than one would see in other venues.†  Indeed, in Parents Night one father asks the elementary teacher whether the other parent (marked in his mind as poor) lives in the school catchment area, since he doesn't feel she and her child belong at this school.

One interesting decision is that Walker decided to focus on the interactions between teachers and parents (and one principal) rather than showing a classroom scene or even putting any children on stage.  That's probably just as well, as we don't need too many more "To Sir with Love"-type scripts, and it also allows him much more range in the children that he is discussing (actual third graders and seventh graders in particular would be difficult to incorporate into these works).  At the same time, most of the issues he wants to dig into will be one step removed.  In other words, the teachers can talk about the problems they are seeing in the classroom, but the audience doesn't get to see them enacted (and thus can't really make their own assessment of what is really wrong and must rely on the teachers' accounts).  That said, Walker really goes to town and shows that these parents (and the home environment more broadly) are really messing with the students.  I'm not sure one really goes to a Walker play for the plot per se, as it is more about the reactions of slightly or very unhinged characters all bouncing off each other as things escalate.  Sometimes it feels like he is trying to keep as many plates spinning in the air as he can, and the question is how will it end: in a mad crash or in a softer landing.  In some ways, The Chance felt like an undeserved happy ending.  I kind of feel the same way about The Bigger Issue, but I didn't have as many problems with Parents Night.  I often wonder if, despite himself, Walker doesn't sometimes engage in magical thinking that someone in charge can just put things right if they want to, whereas people in positions of modest authority actually operate under significant constraints and it is much harder to make exceptions and bend the rules than outsiders expect.  Or perhaps he does realize this (even if his characters don't), but he just thinks it is a more satisfying (or personally amusing) way to end a play.  All that is to say if you read on, there will be SPOILERS related to the plots of these two plays.

SPOILERS

Parents Night (and I think it really ought to be Parents' Night) opens with a young teacher dealing with a father who is quite demanding in terms of asking why his son isn't doing better and then quickly devolves into him spilling his guts to the teacher about his wife having left him.  As she loses sympathy over the course of the encounter, the teacher is more and more honest about his son needing extra attention, as well as needing to tone down the arrogant, hectoring tone he seems to have picked up from the father.  Then we meet a young woman who believes that the teacher is treating her daughter as if she is stupid.  The teacher tries to defend herself and points out that the girl is coming to school with a ton of make-up and is actually scaring the other students.  Her background story is definitely sadder (it is an aunt who is doing most of the make-up and she still has a drug-addicted partner in the picture).  The dynamics are fairly interesting: for a while the parents gang up on the teacher, she sometimes turns the tables on them (as they are both clearly inadequate parents and she is at the end of her rope due to a death in the family and is willing to say things that would/should get her fired), then the two parents have their own interactions.  For me this was marginally more believable of the two plays.  Also, there may be some hope for the children, who are still young enough to turn things around, that is if their parents ever wise up...

The Bigger Issue is interesting in the way it subverts expectations, but is ultimately an implausible play.  There is a young teacher (in fact even younger than the first teacher) who has injured a boy while trying to prevent him from attacking another student.  This is one of those nightmare scenarios that teachers dread, as it is in fact quite plausible.  Still, one of the number one rules is don't touch students, as so many bad things can come from breaking this rule.  Shortly, the mother turns up and starts demanding various things, including why the teacher hasn't been fired or suspended.  As the teacher struggles to regain her composure in the face of a very angry parent, she hands over a folder of threatening messages that the student has sent, and the tables suddenly turn, as it becomes quite clear that the student is pretty disturbed (and the parents have in fact refused to let him be diagnosed).  This would itself be a pretty interesting, if disturbing play, maybe something akin to Shanley's Doubt.  Walker goes in a completely different direction, however.  The husband shows up and before long the entire story unravels.  It turns out that the wife's professional demeanor is just a front to try to get respect from the authorities.  The couple is living with this boy (who isn't actually their child) in a squat without electricity, while the husband (who basically has no skills at all but wants to be an author!) is a security guard at a warehouse full of "hot" goods.  This is sort of ridiculous, but it gets even odder when the teacher and the principal agree to try to find a way to salvage the situation, which includes forging education records for the boy and bringing the couple to live and work in the school complex.  Talk about magical thinking!  It is interesting to see Walker try to write his way out of the corner he painted himself into, but this is definitely not one of his better plays.

It was still worth watching the plays, though I did think Parents Night was the better of the two (several but not all critics agreed with me).  It is true, however, that I have quite a bit of residual sympathy for urban teachers, having been one myself for two years, and that may predispose me to be more receptive to plays about how hard it is working in urban schools, though in fact I had very little interaction with my students' parents (which is a problem of a different sort).  In any event, I'll certainly try to see the rest of the plays in the cycle whenever they turn up.


* Even here in Toronto we're still waiting on The Crowd to turn up here after its premiere in Vancouver, along with quite a number of new plays Walker has written but not had staged.  It was definitely easier back in the day where everything he wrote was produced at Factory Theatre.

** One thing that seems ridiculous in Parents Night but is true in many school districts (and broadly true in Toronto, though I found my children's teachers willing to write comments) is that teachers are not allowed to write their own comments on report cards, but must choose from pre-approved messages from the Board, apparently mixing and matching to come up with something that is broadly appropriate for the child in question (so long as it is positive, of course!).

† I have to admit this is an interesting fact of life at Earl Grey middle school where most of the elementary feeder schools are middle class (with mostly white or Asian children) and one feeder school sends mostly disadvantaged children of colour (and a large percentage are Muslim as well).  As one might imagine, there are tensions over any number of issues, including my serious annoyance that the principal decided to set up gender-segregated gym and swimming classes, which feels very un-Canadian to me.

Cold Spell

As almost everyone in North America knows, it has been really frigid in the Upper Midwest and Canada this year.  I know other places in Canada like Calgary and Edmonton and Ottawa are colder, but it is darn cold in Toronto.  It hit -22 C a few days ago.  Today I guess it got up to -7 C.  When I went out to get groceries it was probably colder than that, but it did seem to warm up a bit.

I really, really didn't want to go out again, and I had pretty much given up on going to the gym.  However, the grocery store was missing a few things I needed, so I reluctantly went back out to the mall, which has a different grocery store, and I decided to go to the gym after all.  On the whole, I'm glad I did, though I don't think I can get above two visits a week if this cold don't break.

Tomorrow it is supposed to be -15 C, and I'm not going out for any reason, other than to crack the door and pick up the paper!  I might go out just a bit on Monday, but I don't think anywhere I want to go will be open anyway.  It then gets back up to -6 C or so for a few days, but Thurs. and Friday will be -15 C or even worse.  I think I will make the pitch that we should be able to work from home on those days.

There really isn't much left for me to do tonight other than bundle up and read (and work on my Fringe script!), though I may get a bit more done on the quilt if I am feeling inspired.  It's coming along well, though a bit more slowly than I had hoped, mostly because I do have to rotate many squares after all.

Stay warm, everybody!

Great Opportunity (Toronto Fringe)

I've been waiting to hear back from the short play festival, and I haven't heard anything, which is probably not good news.  If I haven't heard by mid-Jan., then I will assume my piece wasn't accepted.  However, in a way I heard even more exciting news (which I wasn't expecting at all): my project has been provisionally accepted by the Toronto Fringe!  I have to go ahead and pay my fees and secure the permits to use the school (though the principal of Danforth said that would not be difficult).  Then I will be in the Fringe!  It has to be said there is a lot of luck involved in getting into the Fringe (the main stages are all by lottery!) but for me this year it was all about the hustle (hustling harder than others anyway) and not just settling for the first No I heard.  It is true that I often don't push quite hard enough when I want something.  My literary career could have been quite different had I not been discouraged so easily in the past.

Having learned my lesson from the past, I will go forward with this project, even if the lead actor flakes out on me and I have to recruit a whole new cast.  It's too good of a chance to squander, though I know in the end I'll lose money.  I'll put down the fee a bit later in the weekend, and then spend the rest of the weekend on the script.  Next week I'll see what I can do about recruiting the younger members of the cast and then try to nail down the two older actors who play teachers.  Unless something truly catastrophic happens, I'll be in the Fringe.  So cool.  Honestly, I'm still a little bit in shock.

Best reads of 2017

I'd say that 2017 was a welcome return to form compared to the somewhat disappointing reading adventures of 2016.  Perhaps this is because I spent a bit more time on the classics, though curiously enough the books that rose to the very top of the list were short story collections (or quite short novels).  I did sort of expect to wrap up Trollope's The Way We Live Now (though I suspect it would have still been just outside the top 5); however, it is a massive book and will spill over somewhat into 2018, just as Vanity Fair did last year.

In any event, the top 5 books from 2017 were:
Carr A Month in the Country
Gide The Vatican Cellars aka Lafcadio's Adventures
Margaret Atwood Moral Disorder and Other Stories
Lahiri Unaccustomed Earth*
R.K. Narayan Malgudi Days

The best book reread was a tie between
MacLennan The Watch That Ends the Night
Findley Not Wanted on the Voyage

Honorable mention
William M. Thackeray Vanity Fair
Steven Sherrill The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time (it's likely this would have made the top 5, except the ending is a total cheat -- as abrupt as The Sopranos)
David Bezmozgis Natasha and Other Stories (title story quite astonishing)
Rick Moody Hotels of North America
Isherwood A Single Man
Morley Callaghan The Many Colored Coat
Paul Bowles The Sheltering Sky
Chigozie Obioma The Fishermen (felt a bit like Greek tragedy set in Nigeria)
Richler The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz/The Street (The Street was a bit better)

And a dead heat between two collections of stories set in Vancouver:
W. P. Kinsella Russian Dolls: Stories from the Breathing Castle
Nancy Lee Dead Girls

Probably the biggest disappointment of the year was Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis; rather than being the promised "rollicking adventure," it was a collection of dull, puerile antics by a woebegone lecturer at a minor university (or even technical college, I can't recall), who, at the end, gets a completely undeserved break to serve as a wealthy artist's personal secretary (though I wouldn't mind seeing the follow up of how he managed to screw that up...).  I did like Bradbury's The History Man better (than Lucky Jim certainly), though it almost read better as anthropology field notes of the 70s than as a novel.  How times have changed.  I was definitely hoping that the main character would suffer a much deserved fall from grace, as he was a thorough moral blackguard.  However, due to his exploitation of the mores of those sexually enlightened times, he was able to escape his predicament and turn the tables on his accuser.  Today of course, he would be terminated with prejudice.  I did find the ending to be too unsatisfying to place it in the honorable mention category.  I'm expecting to finally read some of David Lodge's academia-based novels, and I suspect I'll like them better than either of these offerings.

While the build-up wasn't nearly as big, there are quite a few reviewers praising Gerard Reve's The Evenings.  They do note that it is mostly a novel about tedium.  I think I could have lived with that, but what I can't stomach is an imbecilic narrator (Frits) going on and on about how he's dreading talking to so and so, and then the actual dialog is pretty mundane, and he'll think something like: "Well that's that then; not such a disaster.  Only one more hour to go before bed time."  There is plenty of the Dutch bluntness on display, particularly when Frits razzes his brother and a few other acquaintances for starting to go bald.  Charming...  Pretty much the entire novel is like that, and I would have to say it is a waste of time reading it.  It was probably the second biggest disappointment of the year.

* Oops, for over a year, I've mis-titled this as Unaccompanied Earth, not Unaccustomed Earth.  I do have to admit that the stories sort of have faded after a year (in general I can't recall short stories nearly as much as novels), so at some point I'll want to return to this book.

Christmas Eve - New Traditions

This morning I was able to get the holiday card finished.  I think I have gotten more efficient.  I was done with it in 20 minutes or so of editing.  And I spent another half hour deciding whom to send it to (maybe 40 recipients in the end, not counting people at my current workplace).  I'm kind of surprised more people don't send around these cards, especially the electronic versions.  This seems to be a tradition that is fading fast, since people mostly just seem to put up holiday snaps on Facebook or worse Instagram.  Or perhaps I am still sending e-cards but am not central enough in other people's lives to get their cards.  That is a distinct possibility, but given that it is such a low effort to keep people on the distribution list, I don't mind.  It's nice feeling a bit of a connection to the various people I worked with or knew in the past.

Since the grocery stores were open until 6, I did run over and grab some spaghetti and more tea.  In a sense, that is also a bit of a tradition (the last minute shopping, though for food not presents).*

Our next door neighbours had a party and we went for a short time, before dinner actually.  That was a new tradition for them, and I hope it continues next year (especially since it means no work for us).  It was especially great to see most of the neighbours and wish them a Merry Christmas.  I've heard that they used to do caroling on the block, but that seems to have stopped.  The Easter egg hunt is still pretty big, as is Halloween of course, and, at the end of summer/early autumn, we do a big street party.  That's a fair bit of tradition to live up to...

This year, my daughter wanted to read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.  That's a minor break with tradition, but I let her, since she felt kind of strongly about it.  However, she no longer believes in Santa (already discussed last year), and we didn't bother setting out cookies and milk this year, though I suspect I'll have another cookie shortly, despite my vows of eating better.  (Again, just too much temptation at the moment.)  The kids are finally up in bed, and I think it is safe to wrap the rest of the presents.  They agreed not to wake us up too early tomorrow, and we'll see how that goes.

Best wishes for the holiday season no matter your traditions, and best wishes for a happy and prosperous 2018!


* Then I went to the gym after all, since it was only open until 5 and not at all on Christmas or Boxing Day.  I'm not going as much as I did before I got sick and not quite as much as I had hoped, but I think I'm still averaging twice a week.  I will see what I can do to get back to 3 times a week and maybe do more exercise at home.  What's particularly frustrating is that as the body ages, it just is harder to maintain.  The level of effort I've expended so far has barely made a dent, but in my youth I would already have slimmed down.  Anyway, I am getting more and more serious about losing weight, slowly cutting out things that are bad and not eating as many snacks at work.  But my will power is definitely stretched thin, especially during the holiday season.  Giving up Diet Coke (and pop more generally) remains a bit of a struggle, but I don't sense any real back-sliding.  I cut my workout about 5 minutes short, partly because I was hungry (I had skipped lunch) and tired, but also because the book I was reading on the bike (Reve's The Evenings is so incredibly tedious (I don't think I'm going to be able to finish it)).

A Tale of Two Malls

It was an interesting and productive (but long) day.

We got a reasonably early start and put the tree up today.  This is definitely the latest it has ever gone up.  That took just a bit over an hour, including bringing the ornament boxes up and taking them back down to the basement.  The kids do the vast majority of the decorating which is fine by me.  It looks pretty nice, all things considered.

Then I finally brought the bikes in and the cushions for the deck furniture.  They had been largely covered, but it was definitely past time to bring them indoors for the season.  I'm still trying to get rid of a filing cabinet, which is just taking up a lot of space in the downstairs storage area.  I really need to just put it on Kajiji or something, but I haven't found the time.  The extra printer I have will probably just get taken back to Staples for their electronic recycling program.

I had to shovel the snow again.  It is almost certainly going to be a white Christmas.  I don't think the snow really stuck around this early last year, but I might be wrong.  It actually looks like next week is going to be brutally cold, so I am a little unhappy about having to actually go into work to cover for essentially everybody else.

At any rate, I wanted to get over to the mall.  While I was basically done with the presents, I had a gift card from Toys R Us.  This store just closed down in the UK, and it is basically on its last legs in Canada (and not much better off in the States).  I figured if I was ever going to use this card, it had better be this year.  Anyway, the Toys R Us in Gerrard Square closed roughly a year ago, and the closest one was at the Dufferin Mall, pretty much half the city away.  So I set out, despite the snow.

Some of the buses weren't so bad, but the one from Dufferin Station to the Dufferin Mall was terribly packed.  I should have just walked it.  It was packed in that mall, particularly in the Toys R Us.  I looked around for a while.  I decided against any more board games, as we just don't play that many games as a family.  I found a couple of scientific things, though that meant spending more than the value of the gift card.  They asked if I wanted the extended warranty.  Aside from the fact that these warranties are a total rip-off, particularly as the value of the item wasn't that high to begin with, I didn't want to bring up the fact that their store would probably be liquidated by the time I ever needed the warranty protection.

I then headed north up to another mall at Dufferin and Dupont.  Despite the fact that it is only slightly further away from the Dufferin TTC stop, the northern mall (I guess it is called Galleria Mall) was basically empty.  The parking lot was maybe half full, but I suspect most people were at the grocery store, since they certainly weren't in the other stores.  There wasn't a single child lining up for a photo with Santa, which seemed really sad.  It is definitely a strange mall that isn't particularly thriving.

I was there to get some additional material from Fabricland.  (In fact, it appears there are developers that are looking to raze the mall, which would probably mean Fabricland has to move yet again, as they were in the basement of Honest Ed's before it closed and left them homeless.  Maybe this time they'll move east.*)  In the end I got this maple leaf pattern for the inner border.  I suspect I'll end up wasting a fair bit, but maybe I can do something with the leftover scraps.

I also went to Dollarama and got some stocking stuffers, so I am officially done with shopping now.  I've gone ahead and wrapped just over half of the presents, so I won't have to try to get everything done on Christmas Eve.

I perhaps should add that I finally figured out the problem with the directional fabric.  It isn't turned 90 degrees.  It is the bottom half which really is a mirror image of the top, so the squares are actually 180 degrees off.  Ideally one would sew the strips in the reverse order, and it's too bad that the directions didn't mention this.  Unfortunately, I didn't quite catch this, until I had sewed the third batch (of four).  So I will have a lot of ripping and resewing to do, particularly with the penguin fabric, where both sides need to be redone.  That's frustrating and will definitely slow me down.  But perhaps the worst is when I was finishing off a bunch of stub cuts and somehow the cutting guide got reversed, which meant that I cut one strip at 4.5 inches instead of 4.  That could be fixed for that strip, but there was absolutely no room for error while cutting, so the last stub cut is actually 3.75 inches, which just isn't enough.  To make matters worse, two of the fabric squares that were spoiled are from the fabric where I have the least leftover material.  I probably still have enough to make 5 or 6 additional squares (instead of 4 or 5), but I am still quite annoyed at myself.  I'll just have to be extra cautious next time I am cutting out the fabric.  Nevertheless, I should end up with half the top done by Boxing Day.  Now I need to get some rest...

* I don't think this move paid off, as it is usually almost completely empty in Fabricland now, whereas it was always crowded before, even before the final days of Honest Ed's when the whole place became a bit of a zoo. It would be great for me (if perhaps too tempting...) if it moved to Gerrard Square, but I don't think there is an empty space large enough unless the Bed and Bath type store on the 2nd floor goes out of business.