2nd Concert Update

I had a look at the Devo/B-52s concert that went down in Pine Knob a day ago.  Astonishingly, Devo was indeed the headliner and the B-52s opened for them!  So I guess it is true when Fred said this was Devo's tour and they just tagged along.  I wonder if they will alternate headlining duties, or it will mostly be Devo headlining on the remaining dates in the States.  In any case, if you are going, pay extra attention to the times and the line-up.  I know I would have been annoyed had we missed any of the B-52s' set.  The other thing is that they seem to be performing a slightly abbreviated 12-song, 1-hour set, so indeed they didn't shorten it due to the rain (and they seem to have dropped 'Deadbeat Club' on this version of the tour, which is unfortunate).

The second bit of news is that I am back from Elvis Costello and the Imposters at Massey Hall.  Massey Hall was again frustrating, with not enough leg room, so I sat sideways throughout the show.  While I didn't have a pole blocking my view, the view from the sides is still pretty lousy.  I could only see Elvis and his keyboard player.  If I really stretched out, I could occasionally see the drummer and the bass player but not most of the time.  And Charlie Sexton was off to the side and was completely invisible, except for 3 or so songs in the middle of the set where he came center stage.  So not very pleasant, and I am definitely going to limit the number of times I go back.  I'm not going to swear off Massey Hall forever (like History and Phoenix), but it is going to have to be a big event, like Tinariwen coming back again, to make me reconsider. 

At any rate, I have to admit I just didn't enjoy the concert with only a few exceptions.  Elvis was playing almost entirely material from the first 10 years of his career, and he wanted to rearrange them and play them differently as apparently he must just be bored with these songs, even though some of them are not in heavy rotation, while others are some of the biggest hits of his whole career.  I wonder if he wanted to distort them so much that no one else would ask for them again.  I thought what he did to 'Alison' was a bit weird, but I actually hated his new renditions of 'Watching the Detectives' and 'Man Out of Time.'  It was painful listening to them.  In the middle of the set, I did enjoy 'Almost Blue' seguing into 'Clubland.'  And 'Radio Radio,' while somewhat distorted was ok.  One interesting fact is that 'Deportee' was indeed a song he cut as a demo back in 1985, but he only started playing it live in 2025 (as part of the ramp up to this tour) while the lead up story (though too long) is clearly inspired by today's political scene, and indeed if Elvis doesn't cut back a bit on the acidic commentary on the mess down in the States he may find his visa gets revoked...  Then at the end, he just ripped through 'Chelsea,' 'Pump It Up' and 'Peace, Love and Understanding.'  That got the audience to their feet and was a decent way to end the show.  There was no encore, which is becoming a bit more common these days.  I just don't think I want to see him live again.  He still messed around with song arrangements when he was at Budweiser Stage in 2024 (opening for Daryl Hall) but there was more for the general fans (and not just hard-core fans) to grab onto, but not really tonight.  All I can say is I felt pretty alienated from a lot of what he was trying to do.  Of all the shows I saw in Sept, this was towards the bottom, though Elvis does slightly beat out Devo...

On the classical front, I almost had forgotten that I am seeing Jonathan Crow* plays Mendelssohn next Thurs.  It's my first TSO concert this season.  Fortunately, the TSO emailed me a reminder or I might well have missed it!  I had planned on going up to see Beethoven's 5th in North York in a few weeks, but when I tried to get a ticket, the only remaining seats were just too expensive for my blood.  Then I saw that UT Orchestra was playing Beethoven's 5th.  (I just never got around to seeing anything from UT's music school last season.  I just got too busy and forgot to keep on top of their schedule.)  However, when I went in to probe, I saw that they were playing at York University for some strange reason, which would be a real hassle.  I guess the main hall (McMillan?) still is not ready, and they can't fit the entire orchestra in Walter Hall.  Now previously they moved to a church at Church and King, but for some reason they are doing their concerts up at York, which probably means I won't go.  At any rate, the concert is Sat. (i.e. tomorrow) and my evening is completely packed, so I couldn't go.  I think there is a reasonable chance I will see Beethoven's 3rd and 7th this season, but not the 5th.  (I did see Beethoven's 5th last season, sneaking in with one of the very last tickets to see Hart House Orchestra do it.)  What may be more intriguing is that TSO doesn't appear to be doing Dvorak's 8th or 9th Symphonies (I try to catch either of them when they are on), though they are doing his 7th Symphony in two separate concerts(!), though I am only going to one of them.

I am a little bummed that once again I missed out on the U Vic book sale, which was last weekend.  I will just need to set some sort of reminder next fall.  The University College book sale is this weekend, and I should be able to swing by, though perhaps not until tomorrow.  It was much more convenient last year when the Word on the Street Festival was not that far away at Queens Park Crescent, but it is now relocated to David Pecault Square, right next to Roy Thompson Hall and quite close to our offices, so I can go to a reading, duck into the office, and then go to a late afternoon reading.  But I can't really run up to UC for their book sale, or at least as easily as last year.  Then I also need to remember than in about 3 weeks, it is the Trinity book sale.  So many books to read, and I can't help adding a few more here and there, though generally I am buying books that will go into the Little Free Library in the front yard.  Or at least that is what I tell myself...

 

* Jonathan Crow was MIA for long stretches at the TSO last season.  I'm not sure what that means for this season, though I know I'll see him in a few concerts and probably as a guest for one of the Amici concerts, though I have yet to book tickets to that.  Maybe tomorrow...

Concert Update

I'm definitely on the mend, though still pretty tired.  I think it's probably best to be upright, however, so I'll go in to work.  I expect I should be able to make my Thurs. evening event (Naked Lunch at the Revue) and Friday night concert (Elvis Costello at Massey Hall).  I think the general excitement should carry me through, as it did last night.  I actually don't have much planned for Sat. until the very late afternoon, so maybe I will sleep in a bit and then see where I can go swimming.  Perhaps it will be Jimmie Simpson, unless Regent Park has finally got back on track and has their normally-scheduled lane swimming.

It threatened to rain all evening, and in fact since I didn't want to be sitting out in the rain longer than I needed, we skipped the opening act (Lene Lovich).  I'm not even 100% she actually went on at 7, but she probably did.  We got to Budweiser Stage at 7:45 and Devo was just launching into their set.  It was good, though there were two songs towards the end that were kind of grating.  I mean there is absolutely no way I would have gone to see them on their own, but it apparently was their tour and they invited B-52s to join on one leg.  They did their full set!  It still hadn't rained, but it was threatening all night.

I think the B-52s actually cut their set short by about two songs, mostly hoping to get to their big hits before the rain started.  Now maybe they aren't actually doing encores because they are co-leading the tour, and Devo didn't do an encore, but I suspect it was just to try to wrap up in time.  It doesn't appear they have played 'Channel Z' in some time (this is the song my wife wanted to hear).  They often but don't always play 'Deadbeat Club,' and that was the song I was hoping to hear (even beyond 'Rock Lobster' and certainly more than 'Whammy Kiss'!).  Oh well...  It was still a lot of fun, and they certainly won't be touring much more, so it was worth grabbing the opportunity to see them.  We really did luck out that the rain held off until after the show.  We just missed the GO Train, so we walked and walked and walked to get to the streetcar loop.  (Such poor design on the part of the TTC at Exhibition Place.  Just in general the transit transfers there are terrible.)  We got back to Pape at 11 or so when it finally started to rain, and then it rained quite steadily all night, so overall we really lucked out.  The B-52s and Devo are off to Pine Knob today.  That's also an outdoor venue, so hopefully the weather is more cooperative for the fans out there.

Now that I am on transit more due to all this rain, I am reading more.  I finished Kundera's Ignorance (just not that good) and made great progress on Ellen Foster (just shy of halfway through).  Tonight, I plan on taking TTC over to the Revue to see Naked Lunch, and I'll bring Auto-da-Fé along.  But I just got my bike back from the shop, so I may not have quite as much transit reading time as before.  That said, I actually am flying out to Quebec City for a conference soon.  I think I might take Scarlett Thomas's The End of Mr. Y and Ariel Dorfman's The Last Song of Manuel Sendero and see which one grabs me more.  If anything, it's even slower than the weight loss, but I am making some headway in bring down my book piles.  Speaking of book piles, I was pretty sure Thammavongsa's How to Pronounce Knife was at the very bottom on one of these piles.  Indeed it was, but I have freed it now and will make sure I have my copy with me when I go to her reading in a few weeks.

Still Sick

I'm still definitely under the weather, and the actual weather isn't cooperating very much.  It was supposed to rain Mon. and Tues., and then mostly clear up.  Instead it barely rained on Tues., and now the rain is supposed to be a drizzle most of the day and then heavier showers from 7-9 pm just when we are out at Budweiser Stage to see the B-52s.  Lovely...  I'm sure that will do wonders for my overall health.  However, I think at this point I just need to be upright to have the rest of the junk drain out of my lungs.  I think my nose is just about finished running, so I am close to getting over this cold or whatever it was.

I forgot to mention the other day that there were a few very frustrating incidents over the weekend.  First, Sat. morning I found out that because of some last-minute scheduling changes, there was no lap swimming at Regent Park, either on Sat. or Sun.  And I guess it is their annual pool clean-up, but Matty Eckler's pool is completely closed all week (and this week as well).  Unfortunately, the times just didn't work for Jimmie Simpon, though I had planned on doing late night laps there on Mon., which I am starting to really value as the lanes are nearly empty, but I just was not up to it.  I might have attempted to go on Tues., but that is the only day they don't have evening hours, and I still wasn't feeling all that well.  So I am short one swimming session with no obvious time to make it up.  Not very happy about that.

Also, on Sunday, I somehow failed to lock my bike up properly at Trinity-St. Paul's.  (They have some of the stupidest bike racks I've ever seen.)  When we came out from the concert, my bike was lying on the ground.  Someone apparently had locked up on the other side, saw the bike fall over and just left it there.  What an asshole!  I think this fall somehow messed up the derailleur, as I was having lots of slippage in the upper gears.  So I dropped it off at a bike shop to have them look it over, and I am hoping to have it back on Thurs.

I did find that, even on the home scale, I have lost another 5 or so pounds, which often happens when I get sick, so now I need to just keep on with the better eating habits.  If it turns out I can finally squeeze into a smaller size of jeans that will also help me stay motivated and not completely backslide...

Off topic, I am really very frustrated at not being able to find these photos from the Georgia O'Keeffe show in 2017.  I clearly went twice (in April, then May) or even three times and would have taken some photos on each visit.  I clearly remember taking photos of her last paintings at Ghost Ranch, but none of these seem to be archived on the 10 or so external hard drives I have lying around!  I spent some time (back in the day) organizing my 2017 and 2018 photos, but they aren't there.  About the only lingering possibility is I left them on my (work) iPhone for a very long time and so the datestamp is off, but this seems unlikely.  This is quite upsetting actually, though I don't think there is anything I can do about it.  I will see if I can track down the catalog from that show and borrow it from the library at least.

 

Edit (9/25): Well, it's not as good as squeezing into a size 34 loose fit pair of jeans.  (I'm still trying to track those down, but they should be somewhere in the house.)  But I am able to fit comfortably in a straight size (that was too tight a month or two ago.)  So real progress, which is about the only thing that can motivate me to stick to a diet.  Progress is much slower than it was pre-Covid, but I am starting to see it.

Busy Sept.

I've been quite busy throughout Sept.  I actually had a bit of a rest day today, and I promptly got sick.  It could be the changing of the seasons or stress.  I suppose it could have been worse, as I could have gotten sick on the way to (or back) from Ottawa.

Let me back up a bit and see if there is anything I haven't covered at least a bit.  Maybe I'll start with books.  I wrapped up The Scarlet Letter and then was mostly alternating between Denis Johnson's Angels and Zevin's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, which I thought was great.  However, there were a couple of concerts (James and Pulp) I was going to where I couldn't take a large bag, so I took one of the smaller paperbacks towards the top of my list, Canetti's Auto-da-Fé, and read that before the shows started.  (I actually didn't have much time at the Pulp show but had a bit of time before James started.)  Then I wanted to take something slightly shorter than a doorstop book up to Ottawa, and I opted for Russo's Empire Falls (over McCullers's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter).  As it turns out, I was able to get more work done on the bus than I expected, and only read about 75 pages, so I could have taken anything and perhaps I should have just finished Kundera's Ignorance (though I am not enjoying this much at all and just wish it was over...).  

On Sunday, I was at Trinity-St. Paul's seeing a short Tafelmusik concert for subscribers.  It was fun, though I do wish they had program hand-outs or done a better job in announcing the pieces they were playing.  They ended with Purcell's Air from Timon of Athens, which I liked a lot when they played it back in 2024.  It is possible that I was starting to come down with whatever I have now, as I was feeling pretty draggy and didn't really want to bike home.  I did, however, and I didn't think much of it, though whatever I had came back with a vengeance today.  The main reason I bring this up is that I was reading a bit of Angels before the show started and then tucked it next to me in the pew rather than putting it back in my backpack.  Big mistake.  When I got home, I was organizing everything and realized that I must have left it in the church!  Wow.  I'm considering giving them a call, but I was probably just going to give it away anyways (though I would have tried once selling it at Seekers' Books), and the irony of a dark book about criminals (called Angels) in the church book corner (I'm pretty sure they have one) appeals to me.  I was quite close to the end of this book and found an on-line pdf and just powered through the final chapter today.

So the tail end of Sept. will be me trying to finish Ignorance and then perhaps alternating chapters of Empire Falls and Auto-da-Fé, with Empire Falls being much more to my taste.  I will probably read some shorter novels as well, such as Gibbon's Ellen Foster, Kaysen's Asa, as I Knew Him and Jelloun's The Last Friend, though clearly this pushes me into October.  There is a small chance I will read a few stories from How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa, as I need to dig it out from a book pile before her reading at TPL.  I will also have to decide by late Oct. if I am definitely going to read Austen's Persuasion in Nov. (probably) and then Nabokov's Ada and Shteyngart's Vera, or Faith in Nov. or Dec. (less likely).

I saw quite a few movies over the month.  Out of Sight and Midnight at the Revue with Naked Lunch in a few more days, assuming I beat this cold.  I saw Kajillionaire at Paradise, and I enjoyed this a lot.  I think I must have seen a very different trailer, as I didn't realize how central Gina Rodriguez was to the plot.  I do think it was a bit unlikely that the parents would have enlisted her in the first place, risking bringing an outsider into their endless scamming and grifting, as they don't seem the type to really plan out far enough for the long con (that ended the movie).  Gina was just so beautiful and patient with Old Dolio (what an insane name for a daughter!).  I barely follow tv so didn't realize that she was pretty much a star by this time (after several seasons of Jane the Virgin), so I'm glad she agreed to do the movie.  What I didn't realize is that the writer/director was Miranda July, who is now much better known as the author of All Fours.  They actually had a completely offbeat video introduction by Ms. July, apparently shot on a camera in an airport bathroom!  If the Tafelmusik concert on Sunday had been shifted by half an hour or Pearls of the Deep (at the Paradise) had been half an hour later, I would have gone to that as well, though probably it is just as well I didn't try to do that as well.  

On Sunday I had also gone to the gym, bought groceries, then biked over to Carlton to see The Matrix, then stopped by work and put about an hour in on a proposal and picked up the tickets to the show, then biked up to Bloor to see Tafelmusik.  So it was a lot, even without trying to see one more movie.

In terms of $5 movies at Carlton, I saw The Breakfast Club earlier in the month and then the Matrix yesterday.  I see that Kiki's Delivery Service is coming back, but I think I'll pass, having seen this twice.  I probably will see Howl's Moving Castle again, assuming it is in rotation for Oct. or Nov.  It wasn't a $5 movie, but I saw Honey Don't! at Carlton, which I enjoyed, and then This is Spinal Tap II at Market Square on Sun.  My wife actually came along, and she hasn't been in a movie theatre in years!  I thought Tap II was good, though it is very much aimed at Boomers and Gen X who are starting to feel (along with Marvell) "Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near" and specifically that there are more grains in the bottom of the hourglass than at the top...  This picture is aimed at the aged still trying to recapture a bit of their former glory (and some of the shots of the actors from 40 some years ago are just painful to see what has happened to them; it's the same though even worse with Tim Curry post-stroke).  The younger generations complain about Tap II and just don't think the old geezers are funny enough...

On Sat. I also managed to see a documentary about Georgia O'Keeffe (overall very good but probably a few too many talking heads going on about her work).  I would say O'Keeffe is quite an important figure for me, in part because she was so important to my mother.  One of the very first major exhibits that I went to was the O'Keefe retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1988.  My father decided to pick up the catalog as a gift to my mother, and I eventually inherited it.  Over the years, I saw some smaller O'Keeffe exhibits, including one focused on her skyscraper paintings (might have been at AIC or the Whitney, but I can't recall), then an exhibit sponsored by the Tate that hit Toronto's AGO in 2017 (a little surprised I didn't mention it here at that time*), and then the O'Keeffe-Calder joint show in Montreal in 2024 (some photos of that here).  My mother would really have enjoyed that show.  I know that my mother enjoyed spending time in the U.S. Southwest, and I'm almost certain that she went to the O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, NM.  I think it's a museum I probably ought to visit, though who knows when I will be willing to travel south again.

I didn't see all that much theatre.  I did see The Welkin, which I thought had strong acting but I really didn't like the script and I checked out midway through the second act when there was just one too many plot twists (to say nothing of the endless sobbing over the strains of 'Running Up That Hill').  I was going to see Waiting for Godot this upcoming weekend, but pushed it back a week (and in fact am seeing The Green Line at Buddies earlier that same day!).  And The Public Enemy at Alumnae just before that.  It looks like I saw almost no theatre in Sept., though a fair bit in Aug. and then a fair bit is upcoming in Oct.  Instead, I mostly saw movies or went to the Rex or to other concerts.  I saw Haim quite early in the month, then James and Pulp in the same week.  (James was the best of the bunch, and if they had played 'Born of Frustration' it would have been the cherry on top...  They apparently are playing all the songs off of Laid at most stops on the tour!)  And The B-52s are this Wednesday, assuming I am healthy, so I really had better get off to bed now...

 

* What is particularly odd is that I clearly remember taking photos, particularly of her last paintings of Ghost Ranch, but they aren't in the folder with other 2017 photos.  Instead, I have photos (including some O'Keeffe paintings) taken in DC and Chicago on trips we took in 2017.  I even have looked in the 2018 folder, but nothing so far.  So strange.

Georgia O'Keeffe, The Shelton with Sunspots, NY, 1926

 

A Tale of Two Scales

An interesting (for me) thing happened the other day.  As hinted at occasionally I have been struggling to lose weight, like most middle-aged people, where the biggest problem is too much late night snacking.  I have definitely cut back on that, though I still slip up now and again (not at all helped by Kawartha Lakes Dairy up on Danforth with their evening summer hours...).  But my clothes are generally fitting well, and I perhaps can even get into one smaller size of jeans.  I'll try that soon enough.

I actually had a dream that the doctor told me my blood sugar had dropped, so I was particularly anxious after doing another blood test last week.  When I went in for the results, at the weigh-in, I had definitely lost some weight and indeed my blood sugar level is now at an acceptable level, though I can't afford to just cut loose and do whatever I want.  I don't even need a follow up for several more months.*  This is all fantastic news. 

But when I got home, the home scale said I was still over my target weight, which was hugely discouraging.  I had gotten below that weight -- on that scale -- but now I was above it.  I think there must be a 5-8 pound difference between the two scales, with the doctor's scales being more favourable to me.  At the end of the day, the blood sugar levels are what really matter.  Despite the frustration, I will double down and make sure that even the home scale** reports progress over the winter, when it is so easy to slip up and gain weight.  That certainly happened to me last winter.  I really am on the right track, so I just need to keep it up.

Maybe the worst thing about trying to celebrate losing weight is you can't treat yourself to a piece of cake.  However, I did have a samosa at lunch (whereas in general I am cutting even further back on breakfast and lunch) and then had an ice cream cone at Budweiser stage, though this was partly to counteract the spicy Indian food I had on the way to the venue.  It was from a roti place on Queens Quay, and I probably won't go there again.

 

* Apparently, the doctor is having his own struggles getting his PR card, which seems unfair (or at least short-sighted on the part of immigration officers in not giving even more "points" to doctors willing to move to Canada).  I think going to the press is probably the right thing to do to get some lower level minister involved in his case, as Canada is so desperately short of family doctors.  As he said, if they don't eventually fix his status, 8000 or more patients in Toronto (including me) will lose their family doctor!  So I am very much wishing the best for him to get this straightened out.

** What I wish is that the gym would bring back the scales they had (the same type that doctors use) as they seem a bit more reliable to me.  I asked a couple of times to restore them, but it just seems easier for them to keep blaming COVID and not actually do anything about it.  Sigh.

New Glasses

I'd been holding off fulfilling a new prescription for glasses for some time.  To some degree it is just laziness but also I don't use glasses that much, and I don't really define myself as a person with glasses.  It was quite a shock when the optometrist said that I should consider progressive lenses with a portion that would be for close up viewing.  I really rebelled against that, though it is true I have more difficulty with really fine print, and just in general reading is tougher in the early mornings or when I am quite tired.

I ended up picking up some off-the-counter reading glasses at Walmart or Shoppers.  While I almost never use them, they do make a huge difference when trying to thread needles, and maybe this will be the spur I need to return to that long-abandoned quilt...

Anyway, what really spurred this on was Sunday I had been rushing around as usual.  I was running late after the gym and groceries to the point that I fixed soup and then just abandoned it in the fridge in order to get over to Mazzoleni Hall for a mid-day concert.  I was sure I was going to be late, so I really pushed my limits on the bike.  I ended up making it in 22 minutes, which is close to a record, and I made it to the venue right before it started.  In fact the concert was only an hour long, so I briefly debated going home before the James concert.  As I didn't want to deal with the bag check, I just had everything in my pockets: book, phone, work pass, glasses.  (Which will be the same deal tonight at the Pulp concert.)

Everything seemed fine, but between the 3 o'clock concert and the 8 pm concert, I lost my glasses.  I have absolutely no idea what happened to them.  They could have fallen out at BMV or Robarts (where I hung out and read a bit of Canetti's Auto-da-Fé).  Most likely they simply didn't make it back in my windbreaker's pocket at Mazzoleni Hall, and I am trying to find a number for the lost and found there.

But in the end, it didn't matter much.  It was too late to retrace my steps by the time I figured this out, so I just went to the James concert and accepted that the band was a bit blurry.  It was a fun concert, and I'll write a bit more about this in the future. 

So Monday, I ran over to Hakim just after 9, but they no longer make glasses in the store, and they said it would be 5 or so days to get them back!  So then I went to the Eaton Centre, but I had to wait until 10:05 until Lenscrafters opened.  My prescription isn't a strong one, and they were able to have one set of glasses made.  They said it would only take an hour, and I could pick them up around lunch, but they weren't ready until 2:30 or so, but still pretty good service.  I would have had a second pair made, but there was some huge mix-up with my insurance, which I need to straighten out.

I'll try them out tonight at Pulp and hopefully that will be the last I really have to think about this.

New UK Fall Books

This is simply an extension of this post, but with a UK slant.  I'm kicking myself as there was some recent post in the Guardian that really was just a puff piece to stir up interest in the writer's new novel, which was coming out on an impossibly obscure press; it seemed up my alley but wasn't in the library catalogue (to put in an advance hold), and I didn't tag this, so it has probably slipped through the net...  C'est dommage.

But there are three other books from the Guardian that have caught my eye.

Salman Rushdie's The Eleventh Hour, which is comprised of 5 fairly long stories.

Then another short story collection, by Graham Swift this time: Twelve Post-War Tales.

Finally, Jeanette Winterson's take on the story of Shahrazad from One Thousand and One Nights.

All look pretty interesting, though the Winterson is apparently not actually going to be available until Jan., which makes it a winter book.  

I'm not as sure about Rachel Cusk's Parade, so I may have to wait for some proper reviews to understand what it is about...

I have no idea when I will actually get to these books (probably not this fall), but I'll just have to see what I can do once they pop up in libraries.