kathleen_dailey

1. The tragic wrong-way crash on the 401 that killed an infant and his grandparents was triggered by a theft from an LCBO store. This week the Toronto Star quoted an LCBO employee as saying that theft "is a daily occurrence." When I first moved to Toronto, the LCBO was still essentially a drug dispensary: you chose a bottle from a product list, wrote down the stock number on a form, gave the form to a cashier, and paid. Then you trudged over to a long counter with a long lineup and presented the form to a dour middle-aged male clerk. Finally, after the clerk had disappeared into the stacks, retrieved the bottle, and handed it over, you could escape from the store, sheepishly clutching the brown paper bag containing your drug of choice. I'm sure that more than one Ontarian of a certain age is remembering that system--archaic, judgmental, privacy-violating, and hugely annoying, but pretty much 100 percent theft-proof.

2. In keeping with my resolution to get over myself and get out of my head, I impulsively booked four social events this week. Coffee with F. at Mercurio, lunch with C. at Lalibela, wine and chat with L. at her apartment, and lunch with H. at Holt Renfrew. I'm kind of exhausted (because I'm so out of practice at socializing), but wow, was it ever fun. (The lunch at HR was temporarily disrupted when a sleekly blonde and highly tanned lady a couple of tables down from us jumped up from her seat and gave her companion an impromptu tennis lesson, swatting invisible tennis balls towards the ceiling while declaiming on technique. Of course she drew the attention of the whole restaurant. Rich people are allowed to be as overtly weird as they please, I guess.)

3. The Buffalo PBS channel is now airing "My Life Is Murder" without, as far as I can tell, any advance promos or notice. I found it by accident, and I am thrilled to see Lucy Lawless again. This is a show I'll stick with for as long as it's around: low-stakes (so far) mysteries, amusing, and clever--and it features a cat! Win-win-win-win.

4. This news, however, is lose-lose-lose-lose. "Run the Burbs," as the article says, "celebrates non-toxic masculinity, community, female friendships, and the complexities of intergenerational relationships between immigrant parents and their children and grandchildren." It does all that while being both goofy and smart. As usual, I'm not a member of the show's target demographic; nonetheless, I really looked forward to seeing the Pham fam onscreen every week.

Some nattering about local quotidiana.

( Small events feel big these days )

Gratuitous non-seasonal item no. 6: The spouse and I rewatched "Space Seed" last night, for the first time in years, and was it ever jarring to hear the 1990s spoken of as though they represented the far, far future. Which they did, of course, in 1967--but wow, still a bit of a shock. I wish TWOK had been scheduled immediately after, but no such luck.

1. Wow, October is almost here. I'd hoped to be able to go back to doing a trad sit-down Thanksgiving (October 9) for the usual suspects, but given the loved one's illness it probably won't happen. Maybe we can all find a way to celebrate ad hoc later in the season when things have calmed down a little bit.

2. Hugh's Room is back, though the space itself is not yet fully accessible (they're doing a fundraising campaign to fix this). The last time I was at the old location was to see James Keelaghan (circa 2007, before Oliver Schroer's death). Welcome back to a much-loved live-music venue--sadly, a critically endangered species in Toronto.

3. Finally, finally, we're going to get season 2 of Surreal Estate. It starts on October 4 on what used to be Space (in Canada) and is now CTV Sci-Fi something-or-other. I was curious about George R. Olson, the creator and showrunner, and found this article. Not a bad start for someone doing his first TV production. I'm so looking forward to seeing all the people at the Roman Agency again.

4. I've developed a bit of a thing for Moopsy. I loved For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched This Guy by curator, and I think I could probably consume as much Moopsyfic as the universe cares to provide.

McVeigh's Irish Pub is, amazingly, still in existence.

( Read more... )

I don't often get down to McVeigh's these days, but when I have a client meeting nearby I always go there for lunch. The development pressures in the area are fierce, and it's not likely that McVeigh's will stay alive for another sixty years. But I'm very, very glad that it's still right there, right now.

The main parade is under way.

( Probably of interest only to T.O. readers )

The weather is bright and warm and perfect--a lovely day for a parade!

1. I recently discovered that my down-the-hall neighbours, whom I've known well for almost 10 years and whose cats I look after when the humans are out of town, are Star Trek fans--specifically, SNW fans, and more specifically Pike fans. There was much rejoicing when we (first shyly, then squeeingly) disclosed our shared fannishness. Viewing parties are in the works.

2. The Village is definitely perking up now that Pride month is here. It's true that a lot of old-favourite bars and clubs and restaurants have vanished under the unending onslaught of posh condo development, but looking out my living room window I can still see street life of all types at all hours (including participants in this event).

3. Are beta readers a thing of the past for fanfic writers? I've been reading a lot of stories on AO3 recently, and for a surprising (to me, anyway) number of them it's clear that no one was asked to beta. Some of the stories were interesting enough that I could read past the most obvious oopsies (muddled tenses; POV slippage; internal contradictions; and errors in grammar, spelling, and syntax). Others weren't, and I couldn't.

4. My friend K., who has been travelling in Italy for the past few months, will be coming home in time to host her annual Ferragosto party in August. Her enchanted garden is the perfect setting for the mid-August lunch.

5. We managed to summon up energy and motivation to do a thorough housecleaning, which mostly means a temporary defeat of pervasive downtown dust (and, lately, soot from the wildfire smoke). It's pretty easy to keep things tidy, but almost impossible to keep them dust-free. Go us, for now at least.

6. We rewatched Auntie Mame the other night. I'm more convinced than ever that Gillian Holroyd (Bell, Book and Candle) and (the elder) Mame Dennis exist in the same universe and spacetime. I feel certain that there's a story to be told--if only I could find my way into it. Must keep trying!

BlogTO recently published a piece on what is now called, evidently, Guild Park and Gardens. This is the site that was developed back in the 1930s as the Guild of All Arts by Spencer and Rosa Clark. The article doesn't mention Elizabeth Fraser Williamson, who was the last artist-in-residence from the days when the site was a true artists' colony.

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I have vivid memories of my visits with Elizabeth, and especially of the summer before I started law school, when I would see her a couple of times a week for tea, pastries, and art-talk. According to the artist's website, cited above, a large part of her work is held by the Lebovic Gallery, but I haven't been able to find a useful link. I hope it's collected safely in a place where everyone can enjoy and admire it.

All of February, all of March, all of April--and it appears that I haven't done, read, or seen anything worth posting about. Hard to believe, but I can't seem to summon the energy to be creative.

The Covid lockdown hasn't changed my working habits very much, because I've been used to working from home for many years (that is, the years when I wasn't compelled by circumstances to be onsite at the downtown office). I'm distressed to know that the outdoor summer events that we usually anticipate so eagerly--Pride, the art fair, Caribana, the music festivals, patio season in general, etc.--are cancelled, and I miss being able to get together with friends for lunch. And having had to reschedule so many medical appointments was, as it were, a huge pain. But I can't really say that I'm hard done by in comparison with so many others who are having to suffer through this. We know one person who has been diagnosed with the coronavirus, but even he says that he feels fine (though he's been confined to his room at the retirement residence until he has two clear tests in a row).

Right now it's snowing (on May 9--how? why?) while the sun is shining at the same time. We'll hang around the house today and save our grocery trip for tomorrow or Monday. Until then, I'm working my way through Earthly Powers again. Funny, when I read it in the 1980s, just after it was published, I was fascinated; I could barely put it down. Now it seems more like work than pleasure; I'm trying to remember what I found so compelling about it.

Thanks to the kindness of my pal J., I will be attending my first live concert in just about forever. J. has tickets to the Tafelmusik performance of "Tales of Two Cities: The Leipzig-Damascus Coffee House" at Koerner Hall, and she has invited me to go with her. I'm a bit nervous for physiological reasons, but will take all due precautions.




I've missed live music very, very much. Live music of any kind, not just baroque--every time I walk down Yorkville or Cumberland, I fantasize that I'm going to hear strains of folk or jazz drifting out of a coffeehouse storefront. Never mind that there hasn't been a true coffeehouse in Yorkville for years (maybe decades), and that all the storefronts open into venues so expensive that I won't be entering any of them unless I win a lottery. The fantasy abides.

www.wired.com/design/2013/02/3-d-printing-on-the-moon/

So the early prototypes of the twenty-third-century replicator are already old news. Honestly, how far away can a molecular recycler be? I just want it to hurry up and be invented so that I can stuff a whole pile of household crap into it and see the nice neat output of matrix that can then be turned into a cat bed, a topaz ring, or a noren curtain.

In other news, and even though I already live in a big, beautiful condo that's two minutes' walk to Yorkville, the Village, the subway, and BSW, I keep dreaming about renting a tiny little apartment in the Residence at the Centre of the Universe:

livemanulifecentre.com/ 

How come all my downtown living fantasies are becoming reality 30 years after I could really have made the most of them? You suck, Cosmic Timing Joke Generator.