Welp, that’s a first. Never been creeped out by a movie about wrestling before, but Foxcatcher (imdb | rotten tomatoes) did it. I think Channing Tatum has found his wheelhouse: tightly-wound, nearly-mute, physical specimens.
VII. The Grand Finale
When I was a teenager I was obsessed with Rush. I was a drummer, so of course I was obsessed with them, but their lyrics and challenging song structures also appealed to me in the way that drew a lot of shy nerds.
The arrival of Nirvana on our small-town radio dials drew me to grunge and away from prog, and soon I didn’t listen to Rush much at all. I must have sold most of my CDs since the only albums in my MP3 collection are Moving Pictures and the live concerts. And I had to look this morning to even know that.
Since I moved to Toronto I’ve had plenty of chances to see them live — a chance I would have died for growing up — but by then I’d moved on. Recently, though, they began the R40 tour (that’s their 40th anniversary tour, kids…forty goddamn years) and rumours abounded that this tour would be their last, so I figured I shouldn’t wait anymore. I figured I owed them an in-person thank you for all those years. So I bought a ticket. Just one; Nellie would rather have punched herself than watch Rush live.
The time on the ticket said 8pm; normally that would be my signal to not show up at a concert until at least 9pm, but something told me this would be different. I got to the ACC at 8:05 and to my seat at 8:10, just as the lights fell and they walked on stage (so I missed their traditional opening video montage).
By the way, what you’ve heard about Rush shows is true: 98% dudes, mostly middle-aged. I did see some younger guys there with their dads, which surprised me until I realized that this is the same scenario as me going with my dad to see Dylan. The music that was important to him, which also had staying power and said something, meant something to me. It was like that for these dudes too. I liked that.
Anyway, the setlist (courtesy of Cygnus X-1, a Rush fan site which makes me realize HOW MUCH NERDIER I would have been about Rush if I’d had an internet connection growing up):
- The Anarchist
- Headlong Flight
- Far Cry
- The Main Monkey Business
- How It Is
- Animate
- Roll The Bones
- Between the Wheels
- Losing It
- Subdivisions
-Intermission-
- Tom Sawyer
- YYZ
- The Spirit of Radio
- Natural Science
- Jacob’s Ladder
- Cygnus X-1 Book Two: Hemispheres – Prelude / Cygnus X-1 Book One: The Voyage – Prologue / Drum Solo / Cygnus X-1 Book One: The Voyage – Part 3
- Closer To The Heart
- Xanadu
- 2112: I. Overture / II. Temples of Syrinx / IV. Presentation / VII. The Grand Finale
-Encore-
- Lakeside Park
- Anthem
- What You’re Doing
- Working Man
As has been their pattern on this tour, they worked backward through their career. So, as a lapsed Rush fan, I didn’t know the first five songs at all. Gotta say, though: the first two were pretty bad-ass. Thoughts on the rest:
“Roll The Bones” is is pretty much where I left Rush, partly because of the rapping (!) on this song. When they began playing it I was fully dreading that part, but they found a good way to deal with it: the main video screen behind the band showed a number of actors performing the rap bridge: Jason Segel & Paul Rudd (kind of like an encore to this?), Jay Baruchel, the Trailer Park Boys, Peter Dinklage (!), Tom Morello, Les Claypool, and Chad Smith. Very fun. Nicely done.
“Losing It” was one of my favourite songs from Signals (it was the first time teenaged me I really acknowledged that one day I’d get old) but I never ever thought I’d get to hear it last night. It was the first time they’d ever played it live, and they brought out Ben Mink — who’d played the electric violin on the original — to play it again. 33 years later, never played it live, and I saw it at my first concert. Amazing. That, followed by “Subdivisions”, reminded me why I’d spent so much on a ticket.
The second set was all the classic Rush everyone craved. I knew we’d hear “Tom Sawyer” and “Spirit Of Radio” and “Closer To The Heart”, but layering in epic pieces like “Natural Science”, “Cygnus X-1”, and most of “2112”, plus unexpected ones like “Jacob’s Ladder” and “Xanadu” were all I could have hoped for. Well…maybe “La Villa Strangiato”, but we didn’t have all night. By the way, it turns out my lizard drummer brain still knows every single drumstroke in Sawyer, YYZ, Subdivisions, and Syrinx. Every. Single. One.
The apocalyptic ending to the 2112 suite would have been a perfectly good finale for me, but they still had a couple of albums left to cover (after a Eugene Levy video clip spared us from the clap-until-they-come-back-out encore cliché). Closing with “Working Man” with the image of a high school gym projected behind them seemed the right monument to their blue-collar-by-way-of-nerdvana body of music, and tribute to their origins.
I’m glad I went. I’m glad I got to see them paint some of the masterpieces that soundtracked my adolescence. I’m glad I got to see one of my musical heroes play a solo that left me shaking my head.
I’m glad there’s still a Rush, even if it only turns out to be for a little while longer.
Snails: speedier than I thought
Last night was an interesting time. We met a couple of Nellie’s friends (one of whom is a dead ringer for Jennifer Westfeldt) at Duke’s Refresher to play some bar trivia. Well, I was also there to drink some beer and watch game 6 of the NBA finals. Side note: Andre Iguodala was the MVP? Really?
Anyway, this wasn’t the hardcore trivia league type thing. It was just some dude behind the bar asking random questions. No weekly leaderboard, no rules (except: no phones), no official scoring…just plain old trivia.
We won the first round of twenty questions (despite my guess at how long it would take a snail to circumnavigate the earth being off by a factor of 5) for which we received $30 off our food order. We were very close to winning the second round as well, but my lack of knowledge of top 40 pop hurt us.
Casual trivia, nice people, decent beer, and it’s on our way home. I can see this becoming a regular thing.
Session VI
The 2015 version of Session craft beer fest (the sixth, by our count) went down yesterday, once again at Yonge Dundas Square. It was a perfect day: sunny, not too hot, full of beer and friends.
We met up with Adam & Alicia, did a reconnaissance mission, and then got started. Along the way we bumped into Steph & Jeff, and I even came across an old friend from the MBA program.
I ended up sampling 14 beers…well, 13 different ones, and went back for seconds on the last one.
- Silversmith “Breakfast” Wheat
- Whitewater “Class V: No Turning Back” IPA
- Wellington Rhubarb Saison
- Sawdust City “Until Tomorrow Ingrid” Barrel-aged Cranberry Saison
- Stack “Panache” Cedar-Aged Pale Ale
- Side Launch “Syrah Vice” Tawse Barrel Aged Wheat (collab w/ Toronto Roller Derby Team)
- Innocente “Waterloo 1815” Rye Saison (collab w/ Jordan St. John)
- Sawdust City “Limberlost” Saison w/ foraged wood sorrel (collab w/ Johnny Fay from The Tragically Hip)
- Big Rig “Release The Hounds” Black IPA
- Red Hook “Audible” Ale
- Bell City “Round Trip” Cherry Brown Ale (collab w/ Scott Wilson from Departures)
- 3 Brasseurs “Cool Beans” Coffee Porter (collab w/ Raina from Indie88)
- Flying Monkeys “Russian With Love” Imperial Stout
- Flying Monkeys “Russian With Love” Imperial Stout
I’d had the Silversmith and Wellington before, but of the new ones I tried my favourites were the Side Launch, the Sawdust City cranberry saison, and (surprisingly; their beer is usually rubbish) the 3 Brasseurs.
Rounds of beer were punctuated by food (a pork belly taco from Tilde; bacon on a stick from Bacon Nation), K-OS inexplicably singing “I Just Called To Say I Love You” from the main stage, the mega-hammered dudes from Sawdust City singing “O Canada” and demanding that we high-five each other, and a good-but-bad ska band who played every Sublime song ever put to tape.
We ended the night at Triple A, devouring ribs and nachos and brisket. Actually, I guess we ended it at our place, drinking Bowmore. Technicalities.
My new home: Toronto
I can’t remember the precise date when I moved to Toronto. I know it was May of 1997 but the exact day escapes me. I’m pretty sure it was early in the month; I’d finished university in April and I seem to remember having a week or so to get settled before starting at my new job. Moving here was my first real adventure.
I also can’t remember the exact date I left home for university, but I’m pretty sure it was Labour Day of 1993.
So maybe I’m off by a few days here or there, but what I realized recently is this: I’ve now lived in Toronto longer than I lived on my parents’ farm growing up, thus making it the longest I’ve lived anywhere. I spent my first 6600 days there in Nova Scotia, give or take, and now I’ve spent the same here in Ontario. So Toronto is now, without any mathematical qualification, home.
That doesn’t feel weird to me. But it feels weird that it doesn’t feel weird, if that makes any sense.
I didn’t expect to live here for that long. I didn’t expect to live any one place for that long. I really thought I’d end up moving cities a lot, especially at first, and I almost did move to Vancouver at one point. But work kept me here, and then kept me here longer, and now I’m at the point where I’m not sure where else I could move (in Canada, anyway) if I wanted to advance my career.
I had friends from the east coast who moved here with a loose plan to move back east pretty much as soon as possible. Most did, and have done very well for themselves. I entertained the idea for a while, but like I said…we’d have to do it for a reason other than work, and right now we have no such reason. I envy those friends sometimes though, being back in smaller, friendlier, happier cities. Like Halifax. I miss Halifax. But I’m not sure I could live there again.
I can honestly say that I don’t love living in Toronto. I love a lot of things about the city, but it still doesn’t feel comfortable the way Halifax does. It doesn’t make me swoon the way Vancouver does. It doesn’t thrill me the way New York or Paris do. But those are cities I visit, not live in, and the living there is what exposes the pains and the gaps.
Besides, if Toronto is starting to feel boring, that’s not Toronto’s fault — it’s mine. When I look at how little of the city we frequent, at how few of the things in it we do, I realize it’s not about the city you’re in. It’s how you use your time in it.
When I finally escape my office, maybe I should spend that time going on more adventures.
“I must have you and your wife for dinner.”
After thoroughly enjoying Daredevil we have begun watching Hannibal (imdb | rotten tomatoes) on Netflix. It’s been good so far, but if buzz and the Tomatometer are to be believed, it gets great in season 2. I’m psyched.
As long as we don’t accidentally watch it whilst eating we should be just fine.
.:.
Cover photo by Frank Grießhammer, used under Creative Commons license
“You will ride eternal, shiny and chrome!”
Brother #2 was in town this weekend. Just left, actually, wending his way across Toronto streets in the throes of multiple disruptions — rides, parades, torch runs, the like.
We had a busy weekend though: a pint and then pizzas at Libretto Friday night; Fahrenheit, then the Market on Saturday morning followed by some camera shopping and an afternoon spent at Volo sampling their beer and watching the rain beat down, and then to Yonge Dundas Square to see Mad Max: Fury Road (imdb | rotten tomatoes) which was a ton of fun. We weren’t sure if we’d make it there dry; in the hours we spent sitting on Volo’s patio we watched a pretty severe rainstorm go through.
We made dinner last night: shrimp and calamari and grilled rack of lamb, and bottles of Five Rows 2014 Pinot Gris Le Vieux Pin 2011 Syrah. Maybe a little whisky for dessert. This morning we had more Fahrenheit before the brother and I made bacon and eggs and watched old episodes of Deadwood. He’s gone now, packed up and headed south.
Stop by anytime, bro.
Istanbul
For the second time in as many weeks I was invited to speak at a conference in Europe, so I braced my body clock for another impact and got on a flight. A Turkish Airlines flight, to be exact, since I was headed to Istanbul. I managed to sleep for a few hours at least this time. I landed nearly 11 hours later, and we (two other guys were travelling with me) caught an Uber to the conference hotel: the Hilton Bomonti.
Pretty badass, no? The hotel was a Y-shape, so people in fancier rooms than mine had a view of the Bosphorus Strait, but still…can’t complain about that sight.
I ordered a little room service (Turkey makes pretty good Carignan…who knew?) before heading downstairs to meet some others for a quick cruise on the Bosphorus. We stayed close to the Europe side of the city (the other side of the Bosphorus is Asia) and saw some beautiful buildings like Çırağan Palace…
and Sait Halim Pasa, where we disembarked to join the main conference reception.
We ended the night back at the hotel’s rooftop bar, drinking a glass of surprisingly-affordable Johnny Walker Blue. Or, as we dubbed it: Istanblue.
The next day was wall-to-wall conference stuff, then a dinner. A few of us decided to visit Asia, so we jumped in another Uber, drove across the strait, and checked out Kadife Sk. It’s one long street full of bars and clubs. We sat on a patio, drank some Efes Dark, and discovered there’s already something called Istanblue.
It was late by this point, and we were hungry, so we went to a busy place at the top of the street called Reks Kokoreç. They were grilling meat outside that smelled really good, so we each bought a sandwich that the locals also seemed to be putting away with abandon. It was so good that four of us decided to get a second one while we waited for our Uber to take us back to the hotel. Only when we got home did we realize what kokoreç is: “a dish of the Balkans and Anatolia consisting mainly of lamb or goat intestines, often wrapping seasoned offal, including sweetbreads, hearts, lungs, or kidneys.”
Whatever. It was delicious.
The next morning I attended a few hours of the conference but had to leave early to catch my flight. Then, according to an email from TripIt, my flight was delayed by 3 hours, so I relaxed and stuck around…and then suddenly my flight wasn’t delayed after all. I ran around like an idiot, getting checked out and into a taxi.
It’s too bad I was in and out of Istanbul in barely 48 hours. I didn’t get to see Taksim Square, or Topkapi Palace, or the Hagia Sophia, or the Basilica Cistern, or the Blue Mosque, or the Grand Bazaar. I didn’t really see Istanbul. But I wasn’t there to sightsee, I was there to work. I’ll get back there someday, with Nellie in tow.
As it turns out, my flight was delayed after all, so instead of spending three hours at the conference, or even seeing some of the afore-mentioned sights, I sat in an airport lounge. Thank goodness for Priority Pass.
My flight back was an 11-hour non-stop, and would have been intolerable but for noise-cancelling headphones — there were a LOT of screaming kids in my section. But I watched Unbroken (meh) and Monuments Men (big meh) and Enough Said (pretty good) and re-watched No Country For Old Men and part of Godfather II. Soon enough we were taxiing into Pearson, and I blasted past the idiots on my flight and through customs and into a cab, and was home by 10pm. It was a long day.
I went to work the next day, which turned out to be even longer: I got to work at 9am and left at 11pm. Not surprisingly I’ve spent a good deal of this weekend sleeping and relaxing.
Sorry I had to eat and run, Istanbul. I’ll be back some day.
Ben Istanbul’a gidiyorum
See you in a few days, ever’body.
.:.
Cover photo by Robert S. Donovan, used under Creative Commons license
“Squirrel! Where’d you hide your nuts?”
In the week or so that we’ve been back from Berlin we’ve eaten out a lot, due in large part to our near-complete lack of groceries. New-found patio weather’s had something to do with it too. Needless to say, coming hot on the heels of the meat-and-beer frenzy that was Berlin, this has been a problem.
On Wednesday I met friends at Caren’s. I don’t remember eating much; it was all about the wine. Too much of it, probably. And it was too cold to sit on the back patio. More’s the pity.
On Friday Nellie and I met near my work to try out the new new-and-improved Jester On Yonge. Rumour had it they’d replaced many of their beer taps with local craft, and they did…but with more or less the most pedestrian offerings from each. I mean, I’d drink the Collective Arts Rhyme & Reason, Black Oak Nut Brown Ale, Side Launch Wheat, or Oast House Barnraiser all day long, but after that it’s a collection of middling beers like the Double Trouble Brewing Prison Break Pilsner, Flying Monkey Hoptical Illusion, Cameron’s Cream Ale, Steam Whistle, 5 different Amsterdams, 4 different Mill Streets, and so on. Not bad beers by any stretch…but if you’re going to carry 24 craft taps, pick a few adventurous ones. Plus, our server literally forgot my beer for 10 minutes until the chef (!) reminded her. Not so improved after all.
After the Jester we needed a comeback, so we turned to an old standby: Wine Bar. Great food (especially the duck slider) and outstanding wine. It never disappoints.
On Saturday I tried one of the new coffee additions to our neighbourhood: Sam James. I’ve visited the location in the PATH many times and very much enjoy their coffee. I can’t see myself switching from Fahrenheit — they taught me to appreciate coffee, after all — but it’s nice to have another great option so close.
Later that day, when I realized just how nice it was outside, we took a break from work and cooking to share a flight of wheat beers on the Bier Markt patio, then walk to G for Gelato for some…uh, gelato. Nellie had blueberry lavender; I had salted caramel peanut butter. We sat in St. James Park and ate it on a perfect spring day.
On our way between beer and gelato we walked past all the new restaurants on Market Street, and decided to try one of them for lunch on Sunday. We ended up trying Pastizza, which apart from a nice patio was pretty disappointing. Making up for it, though, were the pastries we picked up at Roselle for dessert. Nellie got a lemon tart and I got something called a Turtle tart, which was spectacular.
Oh, and we watched American Sniper (imdb | rotten tomatoes). Pretty good. Not great though.
.:.
Cover photo from the Roselle website
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 