Two Long Days

The title of this post is a bit of a tribute to School of Fish and their song "Three Strange Days."  Today may end up fairly full, but as it is Good Friday and many things are closed, it naturally can't be quite as long.

Wednesday started off as a fairly normal day, but I did have to stay longer at work on this major presentation coming in about two weeks.  I've been cracking the whip on the consultants as well, but there are many smaller, random things I am called upon to do.  I finally got away at about 7:15, which was the absolute latest I could stay, since I had a concert to get to!  I quickly walked up to Massey Hall, just stopping briefly for a sandwich at Subway, which I ate along the way.  I was quite worried about being late, but I make it there with a bit of time to spare.  I was really there to see Tinariwen, but the opening act was Dengue Fever, and I thought it was worth checking them out as well.

Dengue Fever is an interesting band.  They were formed in California by a group that wanted to combine psychedelic rock with Cambodian/Vietnamese elements.  They quickly recruited a singer who could sing in Khmer.  (Lately they've added a few songs in English into the mix, but the majority of their music is in Khmer.)  The bass player is a giant!  I just read that the singer ran into major visa issues and was nearly deported, though they seem to have straightened them out for now.  What was interesting was that the touring line-up had a different musician on keyboards (who also played saxophone in places that were flute on the recordings).  I enjoyed them, but some of the people around me thought they were a bit of a novelty act.  They played a tight set: 7 songs in about 45 minutes.  I believe they played Cannibal Courtship and Uxu off of the album Cannibal Courtship, but I am not certain.

Anyway, Tinariwen came on right after 9 and played an amazing set, though I wasn't as familiar with much of the material, so I suspect it is mostly off Elwan (the latest album) and Emmaar, neither of which I have really listened to as much as their older albums.  This actually makes the third time I've seen them - twice in Chicago (once in Millennium Park for a free concert).  I'm reasonably sure that the founder, Ibrahim, was at both the Chicago concerts (at one point he was sidelined by illness and then by family issues).  Everyone except Ibrahim wears elaborate head scarves, which just seem so exotic.  (I may be wrong, but I think at the Chicago concert, there were female back-up singers, but this was a stripped down unit.)  Ibrahim was on stage maybe 40% of the concert last night, but it was memorable when he was there.  It was a very solid concert.  On the way out, I heard one guy laughing to another about how it was a "Toronto thing" that older, middle class white folk (like his professor) would come out in droves to support world music.  Maybe Toronto has that in common with London, though at a smaller scale.  Anyway, it was a pretty exhilarating concert and helped make up for some of the stresses of the last few weeks.  I'll get Tinariwen back into my listening rotation and definitely listen more to the last couple of albums.

Because I knew the seats in Massey Hall were extremely narrow and tight, I left my laptop bag and everything at work (a good call).  This meant that I had to get up even earlier and get to the office by 7:30, in order to get the laptop and meet up with a group travelling out to a regional meeting.  I decided I ought to bike it, since I wanted the bike later in the day.  So I was out biking the city streets at about 6:45!  That is the earliest I have ever biked to work, and while it was nice that the traffic was light, it isn't something I plan to do again.

Unfortunately, I was about 5 minutes late (having to print out something for the meeting), and then we ran into two accidents on the highways, so in the end we were about 15 minutes late.  It was a strained meeting (not because we were late), but we got through it.  Back at central HQ, I managed to make a back-up copy of all the pages in my U.S. tax return and mailed that off.  (I'll try to finish the Canadian taxes over the weekend at some point.)

Then we had a meeting at Toronto City Hall.  It ran from 2:30-4:30; it was kind of strange planning a meeting that late right before a long weekend, but at least the core people showed up.  Everyone else split after that, but I had to go back to the office to help my manager on the presentation.  I had thought I would stop off at Robarts on the way to the Toronto Reference Library, but I just didn't have time.  In the end, I just biked straight over to TRL.  I was actually a minute or two late, but the reading hadn't started.

I was there to see Kelly Clare read from Mitzi Bytes.  She did read, but only a very short section.  The time was largely spent on an interview and then a Q & A session.  I enjoyed it.  I'm glad that I heard her defend her book.  She explicitly wanted a female character who refuses to apologize (or try to change) even when some of her actions have hurt others' feelings (which indeed upsets quite a few readers).  At the same time, she was pretty thrilled to have written a beach novel that was actually being sold in Loblaws and other grocery stores.  It will take a while for me to get around to reading and reviewing this novel, but I think I shall, and now I have a better understanding of what she is going for.  I have enjoyed poking around on her blog (hoping to make note of the two or three authors besides Virginia Woolf by whom she was inspired).  She has a good sense of humor and is very enthusiastic about so many things.  I particularly liked this post, not only because she picked up on something I noted in my review of Unless by Carol Shields.  It also will prompt me to try to move Woolf's To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway up a bit in my reading list (they would make good summer reading, n'est-ce pas?).

I stayed through all the questions but skipped the book signing.  I had just enough time to request Rosenquist's Time Dust, since the copy I borrowed from Robarts has two pages torn out!  So it was a productive evening after all, even though I had to ride home in the dusk.

Today, I think I will try to ride my bike again, as it is the last nice day for a while.  I'll probably be fairly sore tonight...  My plan is to start off at the Power Plant (which should be open) to see the Maria Hupfield exhibit, which closes in about a month.  Then I'll put in 2-3 hours at work, trying to catch up on a few things.  Then swing by the AGO (and see if I can pre-book tickets to the O'Keeffe exhibit, which opens next week).  Then up to Robarts to return a couple of books.  Robarts is open, but Pratt is not unfortunately.  And that should be plenty to do for what ought to be my day off.

Stories of the internet age

There are many, many novels in which email has taken over the role of phone calls, though of course increasingly people use Skype (and fiction reflects that as well).  In the end, it may end up being a fairly short period where we have email used as a proxy for epistolary novels (never that common to begin with), and characters in more conventional novels use Skype.  (Here's a list of recent novels with email used in an epistolary way, though I must admit most are not up my alley.  The wikipedia list includes more books that interest me, though only a handful are conducted entirely through email.  Matt Beaumont's e might be one that I add to my reading list, though I am less sure about David Llewellyn's Eleven.)

I'm not sure how many books there are featuring blogging (or that excerpt the best bits of a fictional blog, as opposed to books that have been stitched together from actual blog posts*).  I'm sure there are quite a few, though the only two that I can think of at the moment are Sarra Manning's teen-lit Adorkable and Kerry Clare's Mitzi Bytes.  The second one is marginally more literary, with the first part being devoted to whether "the public" will uncover who is writing the Mitzi Bytes blog, and then the second half dealing with the aftermath of the reveal.  There are not a lot of reviews, but mostly the reviewers don't like the second act where the blog author won't own up to any responsibility for what she wrote in the blog.  It is an interesting premise, and it could be taken in interesting directions.  As it happens Kerry Clare will be reading from and talking about her novel at the Toronto Reference Library on the 13th (this Thurs.) and I will try to make it to the event (it helps there is something else I want to do at the Reference Library).  I still haven't decided if I will read the novel, but I will at least consider it.

Speaking of reviewers, there is one novel I am aware of that is built up from fictional reviews of hotels (and a few motels) -- Rick Moody's Hotels of North America.  The somewhat absurd premise is that one of the top reviewers of Rate Your Lodging started adding in more and more personal information into his reviews (quite the over-sharer) and then the reviews accumulated together become a cri du coeur about his condition as a failed husband and father, at least in part because of his poor prospects as a breadwinner.  The novel (or rather series of faux reviews) is amusing and tragic, and I'll probably write more about it later.  Curiously, it was an actual reviewer who said read Rick Moody, it is better than X.  Oddly I cannot recall (or reconstruct) if X was Mitzi Bytes or some other cautionary tale of revealing too much online.

I do have to run now, but if there are novels about blogging or other forms of electronic communication that would like to feature, please add them in the comments.  Thanks!

Edit (4/11): I could easily write an entire post about comments in the internet age, but I'll try to refrain from doing so.  I don't know about Mitzi Bytes, but in Hotels of North America, the ostensible author of the reviews refers to the people who leave comments on his reviews.  These unseen missives from various commentators do sort of typify behavior that is pervasive on the internet.  There are some fawning responses, but more often you get people who seem mortally offended that anyone can hold an opposing view.  In addition, as the reviewer was at one point a "top reviewer" on the site (though quickly faded into obscurity), he seems to attract some particularly disturbed commentators, including someone who starts cyber-stalking him and trying to ruin his credit rating(!).  This last strand is particularly sad, and, while fictional, certainly has its roots in documented internet stalking, reminding us once again of how the internet could have been a democratizing and positive thing, but has so rarely lived up to its promise and in many ways has just magnified human failings.

I think in particular about comments on media websites, where the comments about almost any news story quickly break down into tribalism (internet commenting wasn't really "a thing" in the Clinton era, but from W. through Obama and now Trump, it is completely tribal).  In particular, there are some very dogmatic law and order types, who see no problem with doctors being pulled off planes due to "overbooking" for example.  I'm just sad that there are so many authoritarian types out there, and it is a shame I have to share a country with you...  Reading these comments is definitely a bad habit that I need to break myself of (i.e. reading any comments on any news story whatsoever), though I have to say it will probably only be another couple of years before all "respectable" media websites throw in the towel and decide that they are more trouble than they are worth, particularly in the U.K., with its particularly stringent libel laws.  Of course, it is probably only another few years beyond that that we will even have mid-level newspapers (and most of them already are not much more than outlets for pushing out press releases side by side with click-bait articles).  I don't really think the next phase beyond this looks at all appealing unfortunately.  But don't let that stop you from leaving a comment on the blog if you feel so inclined...


* There certainly are an increasing number of books that have their origins in blogs (and I still think at some point I will gather up the best reviews and essays from this blog and put it out as an e-book -- at this point I might as well wait until I have reviewed all of Alice Munro's short story collections).  One collection I have just come across looks somewhat interesting -- Userlands : new fiction from the blogging underground edited by Dennis Cooper.  The story of how this book came to be is itself sort of interesting, as they were aspiring writers that found themselves drawn to Cooper's blog and exchanged information in the comments and became a quasi-community (but definitely a very male one).

Daily Grind (better in spring)

I've been thinking quite a bit about the seeming endless cycle of tasks that make up modern life -- off to work 5 or 6 days a week, trash and recycling every week (or alternating weeks in some cities), and of course the annual tasks like cleaning up gardens and dealing with taxes...  I've actually gotten the U.S. taxes figured out roughly a week early, but I still need to go through the Canadian taxes, at least to get a good estimate if I owe anything probably tonight.

Nonetheless, I would agree that all these tasks seem slightly easier now that we have finally eased into spring.  I saw nearly all the neighbours out in their front yards over the weekend.  I probably should have done more yard work, but I'll save that for next week.  I was a bit disappointed that the lower deck looks horrible: all the stain I put on is coming up, so I'll probably look for something that is more purely a stain and less of a stain/paint hybrid.  At least the upper part of the deck looks acceptable after the winter.

Anyway, I've been biking to work roughly twice a week (and dealing with the accompanying soreness).  Usually by May I can get up to 3 or 4 times a week, though that doesn't really seem like enough exercise to undo the damage of the winter.  I am somewhat hopeful that this year I will be able to add in another form of exercise (like swimming or even jogging).  I've bought some proper shoes.  My blood sugars seem slightly more in check, since I've given up the Diet Coke.  I am going to try hard to stick to my next resolution, which is to give up crackers and rely more on gum and rice cakes (and fruit obviously).  At this point, it is probably going to require a better work-life balance as well as the willingness to go to bed when I am really hungry (in the middle of the night) rather than staying up and snacking.  I guess we all need these dreams that "this year things will be different" or we couldn't get through the grind.  And sometimes it is true.  I do think this year I'll make more progress on writing and actually getting something published or staged.  I've found even in the past few weeks that when I am more focused, I am able to crank out some good material, so I'm off to do that for a while (before the working grind catches up to me tomorrow).

The return of the ten-dollar word

I've been coming across quite a few odd words lately, especially in Freud's write-up of Dora.  In his case, he often used medical terminology in a way that is no longer current, so I am hesitant to include any of his words in this follow-up to this post.  However, two words from Dora's case history did stand out, and I will add them to my ten-dollar list.

Ratiocination is a noun referring to the process of logical reasoning, which builds off the verb ratiocinate - to reason methodically and logically.  I have to admit, even after knowing the definition, I don't like these words, which seem unnecessary, since we already have the verbs to think and to reason; it would make more sense to modify those to indicate situations where someone is using faulty reasoning or thinking emotionally rather than rationally.
 
Another word that keeps coming up in Dora is reticule, which means a small purse or handbag. Given Freud's constant conflation of reticule and (external) female sex organs, I thought he was referring to a change purse, but it larger than that. I don't think anyone today still uses the term reticule to mean purse, just as most people don't believe in the old wives' tales that underpin Freud's analysis of Dora, including that bed-wedding is a sure sign that someone has been masturbating.  (The wheat to chaff ratio with Freud is surprisingly low, I must say.)

Pressing on, it is quite odd is that one dictionary says that reticule is just a variant spelling of reticle, which is a network of tiny lines that make up a sighting scope for a telescope or microscope. More generally, we would use the phrase lining up something in the crosshairs. Even stranger is that in the U.K., graticule is used in place of reticle.

Rick Moody's Hotels of North America offers up the word haphephobia, which is the fear of being touched.  Some information about this phobia here.  I suspect as with most phobias, there is a wide gradation in how impacted people are by haphephobia.  I wouldn't say I fear being touched by others, but I certainly don't like being touched by others, particularly people outside my immediate family.  Moody's use of the term falls into this broader sense of the word.

Superannuated appears periodically in books I read, most recently in Durrenmatt's A Dangerous Game.  I find this an interesting case, since it originally referred to someone who was allowed (or forced) to retire due to old age and then was on a pension, i.e. an annuity.  However, over time the annuity aspect has faded away (as have pensions in the real world) and the meaning of the word has broadened a bit to refer to a person or thing (or even an idea) that has become obsolete, outmoded or old-fashioned.  In some rare cases, it seems to refer to something being old, but it is probably better to try to keep some precision in the term and to retain that aspect of obsolescence.

I'll end with enervating, which can either mean a kind of wasting away associated with a disease (i.e. literally debilitating) or more colloquially to be tiring or exhausting.  In context: even reading about the long party at Trimalchio's house in The Satyricon was enervating and I had to take a nap after finishing that chapter.

 
One final note is that this blog has surpassed 150,000 views (technically not Likes).  It took something on the order of 4 years to reach 100,000 views, but then only four more months to reach 150,000!  So thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave a comment now and again.

Construction Time Again

Many cities in North America are undergoing redevelopment, but there are few that seem to be growing quite as much as Toronto.

Roughly two years ago, I posted this shot of a building being torn down at Dundas and River.  I think the shot came out well, and I particularly liked the somewhat random colours that some of the tenants had used on their walls.  It did look a bit like a doll house with the cover off.

Some of the other parts of Regents Park have developed more quickly, particularly the Aquatics Centre.  They have made progress on the athletic fields, and now on the spot that this building was torn down, a new building is rising.

I was biking back from work (and fighting against the wind) when I decided I ought to capture some of these changes.

Looking north to site where previous building had been demolished

Looking west over athletic field towards downtown

At this rate, they may actually be ready for occupancy by the end of 2017.

Pop Has Eaten Itself

Ok, sort of a cheesy pun on the group Pop Will Eat Itself.  I do think there is a point of no return, launched in a general way by Pop Art, which the art world has reached today where it has become so self-referential and fairly shallow (think Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst).  However, this post really isn't about that.

Rather, I want to make a small shout out to James Rosenquist, who died on Saturday.  The Guardian obituary is reasonably comprehensive.  I assume the one in the NY Times is longer, but I try not to dip behind their paywall too often.

I managed to see two major Rosenquist exhibits over the years.  One was a bit of a surprise that I stumbled across at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and focused on his large print works (covered in Time Dust: Complete Graphics 1962-92) and then the major retrospective at the Guggenheim in 2003, which also had a very comprehensive catalogue.

You really need to see a massive Rosenquist print or painting in person, but here are a few that I like, even in miniature.

James Rosenquist, Star Thief, 1980

James Rosenquist, Time Dust, 1992

James Rosenquist, F-111, 1964

Of course, to really get the impact of F-111, you not only need to see it in person, but you need to see it wrapped around a room of the proper dimensions.  It was set up that way at the Guggenheim exhibit and it was displayed "properly" at MoMA in 2012.  It is not currently on view at MoMA.

Rosenquist is probably my second favorite Pop artist, somewhat behind Jasper Johns.*  Roy Lichtenstein is probably third, though I generally prefer his much later work, not his work from the 60s.  Claes Oldenburg is probably fourth on the list, as his work always brings a smile to my face.

As I was deciding what to write, it struck me that nearly all of the Pop artists of the 60s have passed away.  Drawing on a list of Pop artists on Ranker, I believe only Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Indiana, Jim Dine, Peter Blake and Wayne Thiebaud are still alive.  Certainly not very many.

* These rankings definitely do shift for me  A couple of years ago I was ranking Rosenquist ahead of Johns, but I really do like Johns's Four Seasons (below), so right now he has pulled ahead.

April-May events

I suppose this is as good a place as any to update this list and focus it more on the immediate future.

In general, I am seeing more music than plays in April -- Esprit Orchestra tomorrow and probably Schubert's String Quintet at the Moredale Concerts and then Amici doing Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time at the end of April.  All quite exciting, though Amici is probably of most interest to me.  I actually just saw an amazing performance of Wijeratne's Invisible Cities featuring TorQ.  I hope it is recorded soon.  In the meantime, there is this.

TorQ has a spot at an upcoming concert May 27 where the main feature is Carmina Burana.  I'll probably go, even though I've got a ticket for that piece being done by TSO in June!  I still need to get my ticket for the TSO doing Beethoven's 7th (probably on May 26, which would be quite a bit of music back to back).

But of course I'll fit in theatre somehow.

In the next week or two, I need to decide when I will go to Ruhl's The Clean House at Alumnae Theatre.  Details here.

I also will be catching two George Brown productions: The Penelopiad and A Flea in Her Ear and squeezing them in in April.

I am probably going to see Dennis Kelly's Orphans at Coal Mine in April, though I'm pretty sure it will be quite depressing.

For those that missed it during Panamania, LePage's 887 is back for a couple of weeks in April.

I'm debating seeing It's All Tru at Buddies in May.  Mostly because I have seen almost no queer theatre at Buddies since I've moved back, and that sort of seems weird to me.

Another production that was just announced is Ntozake Shange's for colored girls, which will be at Soulpepper through most of May.

In terms of storefront theatre and what I am aware of, Wolf Manor will be remounting Julius Caesar and Seven Siblings will be doing Albee's The Play About the Baby (both in May).

Finally, at the very tail end of May, Norm Foster's Office Hours opens at East Side Players, though I suspect I'll actually catch it in June.

So that seems like more than enough culture to try to fit in during the next two months!

Actually, I would be totally remiss if I didn't mention that the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit at the AGO opens in April and runs through late July.  I'll try to go several times.  I wonder if it will be quite as crowded as the landscape exhibit, which never thinned out on any of the days I was there, whereas the Harris and Turner exhibits had slow days.

I had really hoped to get to Montreal next weekend to see the Chagall exhibit, but I am just not far enough along on taxes and work is going to be pressing for at least 3 more weeks.  I'll see if I can sneak it a visit to Montreal in May or possibly the first week of June, though that will likely be a busy weekend.