Tag: art

What a Jagged Little Pill

I decided to go see Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill: The musical because I am a big fan of Jagged Little Pill, the album, and indeed of much of her other oeuvre. But I didn’t know anything about the musical itself, or what kind of story they’d woven around the songs.

Jean agreed to go also because, well, because he’s a sport I guess, given that he hadn’t super enjoyed the last two musicals we’ve seen, the acclaimed Hamilton and the also acclaimed Rent. Couldn’t quite follow the former (lots of plot, admittedly), and couldn’t quite get the latter.

And what I wouldn’t give to find a soul mate?
Someone else to catch this drift
And what I wouldn’t give to meet a kindred?

All I Really Want, Alanis Morissette

Fortunately, Alanis, Diablo Cody (who wrote the book), and Glen Ballard (who co-wrote many of the songs), were kindred with Jean. He really enjoyed this musical. As did I. Because it was awesome!

The songs are used to tell the story of a year in the life of a family of four: the tightly wound Mary Jane, her workaholic husband Steve, their academically inclined son Nick, and their activist adopted daughter Frankie. Big, heavy topics are addressed: Sexual assault. Opioid addiction. Racism. Sexism. Some moments are super uncomfortable. But there’s a lot of humour in between. And all those great songs!

The playbill includes everything from Jagged Little Pill along with some selections from other albums, like “So Unsexy”, “Uninvited”, and “Thank U”. Lyrics are occasionally modified to suit the character and the situation. They really supported the story; none seemed to be just trotted out because they were big hits that needed including! “You Oughta Know” is not necessarily sung by whom you’d expect, to whom you’d expect, but it builds to an undeniable thrilling climax nonetheless. The audience responded ecstatically, as they should have.

But I had to laugh that after the line:

Why are you so petrified of silence? Here, can you handle this?

The audience totally could not handle the following silence, and had to fill it in with random clapping.

Anyway. This thing was really well cast, with the actors playing Mary Jane, Frankie, and Jo (a friend of Frankie’s) particularly standing out. Amazing singing voices, and just outstanding performances.

5 stars. No notes.

Getting there and back

This was in Toronto, so we had to make our way there. For Jean, this trip turned out to be the day after he got back from a later-scheduled work trip, so that wasn’t ideal, but he coped! We took Flixbus again. They’re finally using proper branded Flixbuses on the Kitchener-Toronto route (previously it was a generic bus), which even had wifi, albeit somewhat flaky.

For some reason we couldn’t seem to leave from our usual Waterloo stop, and had to get on at the Kitchener stop. Not a big deal—just meant staying on the Ion (our local light rail) for four stops instead of one. Still seemed odd, though, because on the way back, we did get off at the Waterloo stop.

Waterloo Park with fall foliage
Waterloo Park, which is near our usual Flixbus stop

The bus was weirdly overheated for the first portion of the trip back. I was starting to wonder if I could actually handle the entire 1 hour, 45 minute trip (not that it was clear what the alternative was) when the heat finally stopped pouring out.

We managed the Toronto subway pretty well also (we have Presto cards now!), though Google kept confusing us with mentions of line outages. Took us a while to realize that said outages were occurring much further up the line than we intended to go.

Other stuff we did

It was a quick trip: we left Saturday morning and returned Sunday morning. Of course, that was long enough that we needed a hotel room. We went with the Courtyard Marriott, which was a “mere” $300 or so for the night. Was nice that the room was available despite our arriving pretty early, around 11:00 AM, and even nicer that they gave us a little bag of snacks and bottles of water. Totally worth the $300! (I joke. But it actually was nice.)

We grabbed lunch from a Freshii, which, oddly, we’ve never eaten at before. It was good. We each had a smoothie and a wrap. Quite fascinating how much stuff they can fit into those wraps.

Since we have memberships, we spent a bit of time at the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario). Their special exhibit was featured the artist Kaws, who does stuff like this:

Big red and gray bears
Pile of stuffed toys.

Which was kind of interesting. For one part, you had to download an app on your phone, then point it (the phone) at a particular spot in the gallery to see the art, as a 3D image. We took a picture after doing that, but are not clear on where that pic ended up…

And overall, we probably enjoyed the Cornelius Krieghoff room (part of the permanent collection) the most during this visit.

Our post-musical dinner was at Avelo, where we’ve been twice before. Since our last visit, though, they’ve changed things up. The beautiful room upstairs, where we sat both times previously, has been converted into a bar. Meals are now served downstairs, in a smaller, darker, noisier room. Since we had both envisioned the previous visits, we were a bit miffed.

To be fair, I think they had emailed me about these changes—it just hadn’t really registered. (I thought their new Bar Avelo was at some other location than our Avelo.) With generous table spacing and visible HEPA filters, the previous seating area felt as safe as a maskless, indoor dining experience could possibly be. And while the new downstairs room did still have a couple HEPA filters, and not all the tables in the small room were filled, it still didn’t feel as comfortable.

On the plus side, the food was still amazing from start to finish, the service was very good (though we still missed our upstairs guy), and the wine pairings were spot-on. It has lost what made special, though—other Toronto places also have good food, service, and wine.

(Not that Avelo needs me. From where I was sitting, I could overhear that the new bar was super-popular: so full that they had to turn people away.)

Swallow it down (what a jagged little pill)
It feels so good (swimming in your stomach)
Wait until the dust settles

You Learn, Alanis Morissette

Five five-star restaurants in five days

We dined in domes, tents, and old Victorian houses. We had five dinners but we only left two tips (and we don’t suck). In between, we walked, we wined, we saw some art.

Blog title courtesy of Jean, who was determined to have some time off after not getting any at Christmas time (beyond the statutory days). We didn’t venture too far from home—Beamsville, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Toronto, Kleinburg, which are all within a two hours’ drive. And it wasn’t, per se, designed as a culinary tour. But it did turn out that way!

Because, you see, I’m still making some efforts to avoid catching Covid. And when it came to selecting restaurants, well, it wasn’t your Mom and Pop fish’n’chips places that offered space. And clean air. Those only came packaged as “dining experiences”. Covid safe(r), it turns out, is kind of delicious.

Sunday

We left home mid-morning, headed to an appointment at Commisso Estate Winery in Beamsville. Their website promised wine tastings in a “fun, safe, private” environment. I didn’t necessarily trust the promise—so many places just didn’t bother to remove their Covid protocols page once they stopped following it—but I figured a smaller winery in February wouldn’t be that crowded. I optimistically (and pragmatically, given that dinner wasn’t til 7) also ordered a charcuterie board.

It worked out. We ended up being their only customers at this time. Not only that, but their tastings are conducted in a tent that was plenty warm, thanks to gas heaters. After we were seated, we got the history of the place, and overview of the wines.

Continue reading “Five five-star restaurants in five days” →

Visiting Le Plateau during a plateau

The weather gods were smiling on us during our recent trip to Montréal, Québec, which made for a very pleasant five days and four nights (October 2 to 6, 2022). Though we’ve visited many times, we still found new things to do, along with revisiting favourites.

I’ve learned how to do anchor links in WordPress, in case you want to jump to a particular part…

Covid precautions: Got my bivalent vaccine 10 days before leaving, which also happened to be six months since my fourth dose, so that worked out well. Also purchased 3M Aura masks, Enovid anti-viral nasal spray, Salinex Protect nasal spray, and a portable charger.

Continue reading “Visiting Le Plateau during a plateau” →

Things I bought on my summer vacation

Because someone has to stimulate the economy.

Destinations: Quebec City, Charlevoix, and points between

  • A British magazine called Classic Rock that counted down the top vocalists of all time. Number one choice of fans, critics, and musicians alike? Freddie [Mercury], natch.
  • Blueberry honey from the Musée de l’abeille. Honey that fresh is so different from the stuff you get at the supermarket, it might as well be a different food altogether.
  • A crazy amount of Québecois cheese. Among them: la Sauvagine (from the source), cèdre de lune, le migneron, and le ciel de Charlevoix (from that source), and the 1608, made from a rare breed of Canadian cow dating from that time. (Hey, did you know you can freeze cheese?)
  • A Medieval-style red and black dress that seems slightly impractical but that I was talked into on assurances that it really suited me.
  • A used copy of Roger Daltrey’s Ride a Rock Horse LP. Not CD—LP. Really, I wanted the cover.
  • Chocolates ranging in flavors from ginger to chai to marshmallow. None of which I’ve actually tried yet, but they look and smell great.
  • A fat British movie magazine called Empire. Because in Britain, apparently, the Internet has not killed the movie magazine business, as it has in North America.
  • Items I won’t detail from La boutique Kama Sutra. Oh, and some batteries.
  • Free-range duck products in many forms—magret, foie gras, paté, confit. (Yes, we travelled with an electric cooler. Otherwise, the smell of cheese might have killed us.)
  • A copy of the Ryerson Review of Journalism. The one magazine I haven’t read yet.
  • An original art work by a young Québecois artist, done in pastels, about 16 by 20, featuring a woman bathing. Quite striking.
  • Sparkling cider products from the cidrerie at l’Ile aux Coudres.
  • An art book featuring the work of Laurent Lafleur, one of whose original paintings we already own, and whom we got to meet on this trip.
  • Two bottles of Rosé from a Prince Edward County winery, meant to distract us from the astounding Chardonnay we tasted but didn’t purchase at another Prince Edward County winery, because that one was $42. Didn’t work—we spent the next half week mooning over that Chardonnay, until our taste buds were cleared by an astounding Cotes du Rhone (with meal).
  • MoneySense magazine, which has advice on how to save money. Which I probably need now.

Open ear-ed

Open Ears is a Kitchener Festival of Music and Sound, the goal of which is hearing new things, or old things in new ways. This year’s theme is environments.

The KW Symphony is a major sponsor, and the first Open Ears event we attended was indeed a Symphony concert at Centre in the Square. Called “Sound Explorations,” the first half featured R. Murray Schafer’s “The Darkly Splendid Earth: The Lonely Traveller,” with concert master Stephen Sitarski walking to different parts of the stage to play his various moody solos. It ended with Benjamin Britten’s “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” a very lively tour through every instrument in the symphony. And in between, we got John Cage’s 4’33”. That would be four minutes and thirty-three seconds of the various sections of the orchestra raising their instruments, yet none of them ever playing a note.

So, yeah, that was different. But not that different. And certainly not in a different environment.

So this weekend, we explored. We went out to downtown Kitchener for a 10:30 PM concert by a band called The Books, at a club called The Gig. The Books’ thing is sampling sound, and films, and writing songs around them, but on acoustic instruments. Their entire show had visuals, from home movies, old films, TV clips, whatever. The songs they come up with range from the quite lovely and touching to the completely confounding and dissonant. It’s a lot to take in, actually. So the hour or so they played was about right.

But though done with The Books, we weren’t done, not quite yet—even though it was now approaching midnight. Instead we went on to a Blue Dot event at The Tannery. We were even less sure what this was supposed to be (the brochure said an experiential metaphor. Gee, thanks, that’s helpful), or what The Tannery was, exactly.

Turns out that The Tannery is an old warehouse, converted to a nightclub kind of thing. The whole place was somewhat dimly lit. Blue light adorned one section, art slides were projected on one wall, a film loop of something like an Olympic gymnast was projected on another wall, and various physical art pieces were on display. A DJ played electronica. The crowd was Bohemian and, we were guessing, mostly in their 20s. So it was certainly an intriguing atmosphere. We went to the upper level to take it in.

About a half hour, maybe 45 minutes after we arrived, we were all ushered into another room for an art event. This turned out to be three guys—one of whom was hunky KW conductor Edwin Outwater—each standing on a podium thingie, each swinging a speaker, with a lights, from a rope, over their heads. Meanwhile, the artist adjusted the sound from this central console. At some points all the room lights went out, leaving only the illumination from the swinging speaker thingies, creating a kind of strobe effect.

It was pretty cool, actually. Though looked absolutely exhausting to participate in.

YouTube video of this performance—not from Kitchener, of course:

Then it was back to the big club room, as the music was to be playing all night.

Of course, we’re too old for that kind of thing, so we didn’t stay much longer, and therefore missed out on whatever other coolness ensued. But we certainly did experience new sounds in new environments.

Then this morning, CBC Radio gave me a new appreciation of disco music. But that’s a subject for another day.

Reason of the day to not vote Conservative: Drive-by arts funding cuts

What do the Conservatives have against arts and culture?

Too many naughty words, maybe?

That was the suspicion behind Bill C-10, which gave give the Heritage Minister the power to deny tax credits retroactively to films or television shows that are “contrary to public policy.” The film Young People Fucking was said to be the impetus for it—or rather, the title of the film was, as few had (or have) actually seen this movie. (My favourite quip in response was that if we’re just judging by title, we better ban Dirty Dancing and see something wholesome like Last Tango in Paris.) What was said to be especially chilling was its “retroactive” nature—since hard-won federal grants could be withdrawn, no one would have the confidence to go ahead with any movie projects.

Given how much attention the Bill eventually got, it’s easy to forget now that the Conservatives snuck it into “a lengthy omnibus bill of technical changes to tax law” — where, for an alarmingly long time, no one noticed it.

And it wasn’t exactly the first time they’d tried something like this. In 2006, a $4.6 million reduction in spending on Canadian museums was buried in a much larger announcement. “The news was a shock to the museum community and particularly the Canadian Museums Association, which thought it had an agreement with the Heritage Ministry for a new museums policy that would be more generous with all museums and provide stable funding.”

Then this summer? When the House wasn’t sitting, when you were on vacation, when arts groups were gearing up their programs for the fall? First up was the $13.7 million cut to programs that support artists’ travel. Then the motherlode—$44.8 million in cuts to five arts programs. With promises of more to come.

Now, there may be defensible reasons for these cuts. Maybe the programs were inefficient. Maybe they were outdated. Maybe they were just great, but were frankly sacrificed on the altar of the stupid GST tax cut and an interest in preventing the deficit from getting any bigger.

We just don’t know. Because the Conservatives haven’t bothered to tell us. They didn’t let it go through debate in Parliament, they didn’t hold a press conference on it, they didn’t consult any experts in the field, they didn’t warn anyone whose livelihood was about to be damaged. They just cut it. Surprise!

“The government has departed from its usual consultative process and cut these programs without warning,” said Stephen Ellis, a board member and former chair of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association and president of Toronto-based Ellis Entertainment Group, an independent TV production company.”

Of course, they are campaigning now, so it’s a little harder to avoid the questions. But just a little. In the Globe and Mail this weekend, Harper mumbled something about these being programs “Canadians don’t want” (when did we say that?), while the Heritage Minister told a CBC reporter they would be redeployed to other areas, though she couldn’t say to what, ran away when pressed, and refused to be interviewed formally on the subject.

That’s the best these spin doctors can do? Wow, now I’m comforted that these cuts were so very well-thought and won’t harm this very important sector of our economy one bit. Aren’t you?

The Liberals, the NDP, and the Green Party have all spoken out against these cuts.