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So hard to believe! And so many heart attacks!!! Definitely one for the ages. Both teams played their hearts out, and what more can you ask...

Cheap Novelties arrived, and I am sad to say that it doesn't appear there are any new strips at all. There are a few random fake newspaper advertisements added to the final story, but I do feel ripped off. The slightly larger size of the comics isn't worth it, in my view, for anyone who already owned it. I'm sorry now that I didn't buy directly through Amazon, since I would return this, but it just isn't worth trying to send it back to a reseller. I'm halfway through The Federalist Papers. I found the first 40% to be really quite trying and a bit boring, as the whole point is to explain why the Articles of Confederation were no longer fit for purpose. Some of the arguments are a lot less convincing now, particularly that the national government will not bother itself with local issues. I suspect that if they knew what we know now, they would definitely have changed some aspects of the Constitution and been far more explicit about what was state and national business. On the other hand, Hamilton was always a promoter of a strong national government, so maybe he wouldn't have been bothered. I read recently, however, that he came to want an imperial presidency and actually argued that the President should serve for life! (This didn't actually make it into the Federalist Papers, however.) All things considered, the U.S. probably dodged a bullet when Hamilton didn't... Now that the Papers are actually explaining what went into some of the compromises in the text of the Constitution, it is more rewarding.

Just read Symposium by Muriel Spark on the flight to Minneapolis. I didn't like it at all. I'm definitely not on the same wave length as Spark. There are a few more of her books I probably "ought" to read, but life seems too short right now. I'll probably finish up Graham Swift's Ever After while traveling and on the way back, but so far it isn't doing very much for me. I suppose that's ok. I was pretty sure both of these books were "read once and discard" books...

Oh no! My wife will be so sad and her mother even more so. A true Chicago legend. Almost every time I went over, I would hear him on the radio. I'm glad he was healthy enough to be broadcasting right to the end.

This was overall an enjoyable read, but I am a little less attracted to darkness for its own sake, which sort of seems the main point of this novel. I was a bit less satisfied with overall plot and some plot turns than I was 15 or 20 years ago. Probably more than anything else, it is really hard to read (post 9/11) about a terrorist cell planning on attacking New York City. It was just a dark novel in 1985 when it was published, but now it feels a bit too prophetic. I've actually been meaning to read The Federalist Papers for some time now, and decided that rather than spend any more time thinking about the election, I would tackle them now. It is somewhat interesting and more than a little depressing that the introduction by Garry Wills (written in 1982) is just so optimistic and even a bit proud about how much compromise there was between the parties. (Even then that was clearly a bit of a rosy view...)

Just saw a very powerful production of Fugard's Master Harold and the Boys. This play is of course not nearly as topical since the demise of apartheid, but there is still plenty of privilege in the world and helping people think about how power/privilege is perpetuated is still relevant.

Someone tweeted "Welcome to peak-Boomer," which seems about right. I agree writing lyrics is writing, but I guess I am a hopeless snob and don't feel that writing lyrics measures up to writing poetry and certainly not writing novels or plays. So I am not in favor of Dylan's winning the prize and won't be celebrating it.

The first 20 pages or so of Waiting for the End of the World seem quite promising. It seems like it will live up to my memory of it, which is a good sign. Fingers crossed anyway. I just learned that Ben Katchor's Cheap Novelties is being reprinted in hard cover, and apparently there is some new material in this edition (or rather classic strips from that era that weren't included at that time). I'm never a fan of double-dipping, but it has been OOP for quite some time, and the new edition is reasonably priced. I'm planning on picking up a copy. I will be upset if they just added some material from Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer, but I am assuming that is not the case.

I generally wasn't that impressed with Floating City, as I didn't think the underlying concepts were all that insightful. He also seems to be having a nervous breakdown all through the second half of the book (which is really more of a memoir than any sociological research). I liked several aspects of Kay's Lucky Coin Variety, though there were some frankly unbelievable plot twists towards the end. Though if one is interested in the younger generation of Koreans living in Canada then it is a good starting point. I'm going to read Deyan Sudjic's The 100 Mile City, which should be somewhat more intellectually rewarding (than Floating City) and Madison Smartt Bell's Waiting for the End of the World. I read this years ago and really liked the book. I am a bit nervous I will have changed in the meantime and not like it as much any longer. I guess I'll know soon.

It does look fairly interesting. I'll see if I can move it up a bit on the list...

I just wrapped up Lethem's Chronic City. I'd have to say it has become my favorite Lethem novel, edging out Motherless Brooklyn. I have not read Fortress of Solitude (probably will in 2018!) but I suspect Chronic City will still be number one. As I said, it definitely feels a bit like a lost DeLillo novel with a preoccupation on what is real and what is simulation. (If you do read Chronic City, it is best to have read Dr. Bloodmoney beforehand.) I'm starting Kay's Lucky Coin Variety now, then I'll probably tackle a pop-sociology book called Floating City.

I'm about a quarter into Lethem's Chronic City. Still finding it interesting. It almost strikes me as a lost novel by Don DeLillo, though it is interesting that there is a subplot involving an astronaut (and 4 cosmonauts) stuck in a space station, probably never to return. I wonder if this is a shout-out of sorts to PKD's Dr. Bloodmoney. I would be a bit surprised if Lethem had not read Dr. Bloodmoney. (Actually, I did a quick search and Lethem is a huge fan of PKD and has read essentially all of his work.)

While Christodora relies a bit too much on coincidence and I have a few reservations relating to how most of the characters do drugs, but the non-white characters get more hooked than the white characters. Still, I thought the ending was pretty good (some might think it too sappy). So on the whole it was worth reading. I've just started Lethem's Chronic City. I'm liking it so far. I am just back from an author's reading (which I haven't done in ages). This was Canadian-Korean author, Ann Choi, reading from Kay's Lucky Coin Variety. It is one of the finalists for the Toronto Book Award 2016. I'm sort of fortunate that I put my reserve request in way back before it got hot, so I now have the book waiting for me at the library (and there are still 170 people in queue!). I should be able to pick it up in a few more days.

yes, this is big news indeed, though it will be painful to wait for the collection to be released in drips and drabs. I'll hold off for a while to see if they partner with other digital download companies or if I have to reinstate my iTunes account.

Still my favorite Roth work to date. I liked it a lot at the time. It's on my list to read again, though that probably means a year or two away! Have you read Exit Ghost, which is the sequel to The Prague Orgy? I have not, but I will when I reread Zuckerman Bound. Still my favorite Roth work to date. I liked it a lot at the time. It's on my list to read again, though that probably means a year or two away! Have you read Exit Ghost, which is the sequel to The Prague Orgy? I have not, but I will when I reread Zuckerman Bound.

Christodora does have quite a large cast of characters, and seems to be at least sort of influenced by Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities in how they are juggled. What is different, and actually more than a little annoying, is that Murphy insists on moving the chronology all over the place. So chapter 1 is 2001, chapter 2 is 2009, chapter 3 is 1981, etc. I guess it is sort of to draw attention to little continuities that might otherwise escape the reader if the story was largely chronological with just a flashback or two. For instance, the parents fairly casual drug use has escalated in their adopted son to the point he looks well on the way to becoming a junky at 17, etc. Still, if a writer needs to rely on these gimmicks throughout a fairly long book, that is not a good sign in my mind. I've also dipped a bit into Sciascia's Open Doors, which is a collection of 4 novellas. They don't really function that well as mysteries, but they do show just how much contempt Sciascia had for Sicilian society or at least its upper rungs, particularly the convergence/conspiracies between the Catholic Church, the police and other government bureaucrats and the Mafia.

I saw 3 plays this week. A solid production of Harold Pinter's Old Times, and a very good production of Sean O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars. This is actually the Abbey Theatre Company on an North American tour, and they have a few weeks left of the tour, though it is mostly in college towns and not major cities (Toronto being the main exception). Last night I saw a middling production of Wallace Shawn's Aunt Dan and Lemon. I knew it was a "challenging" play. I didn't realize it had so many gaping structural holes that completely undermined the thrust of Shawn's arguments. I honestly don't know why anyone thinks this is a prize-worthy play (it won an Obie). It wasn't worth my time, at least.

He certainly slowed down around 2005, when his long-time partner died. He did complete Me, Myself and I in 2007, and he wrote an expanded version of The Zoo Story around that time as well. That seems to be his last completed work, though we may find he had some unfinished scripts that will be published down the road. Still, reasonably active for someone who would have been close to 80 at that time.

Obituary in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/sep/16/edward-albee-dies-playwright-whos-afraid-virginia-woolf One of the last major playwrights, and certainly one of the last major playwrights to have the courage to write plays where you come out of the play and wonder "what was that actually all about?" He and Harold Pinter wrote some of the most challenging works of the 20th Century. Sometimes it didn't work -- I hated The Goat or Who is Sylvia, and I thought The Play About the Baby was a retread of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? But when it did -- wow.

This was definitely a strange book, but one that didn't really succeed for me for lots of reasons, not least of which he tried to thematically link up the FLQ and its brief reign of terror in Montreal in 1970 to much broader and more dangerous movements, primarily the Nazification of Germany. I enjoyed the philosophical crime novella One Way or Another by Sciascia. I just got Christodora by Tim Murphy from the library. There are a lot of holds on it, so I'll have to make sure to wrap it up in one borrowing period! The reviews have been pretty good, so I hope it lives up to them...

Of the two, I tend to prefer Fitzgerald, but I appreciate both of them. I recently acquired the rest of Fitzgerald's novels and most of his short stories. I will probably plan my next pass through both of them through their stories and then to some of the lesser-read novels. I've wrapped up Lem's Memoirs Found in a Bathroom. On the one hand, it is a sustained mediation on a building full of paranoid spies and counter-spies. (And I have to think that Terry Gilliam knew of this and was at least somewhat inspired when creating Brazil.) But it ends up feeling extremely one note. How many times do you have to hear that everyone is at least a double agent, and probably a triple agent or beyond? And everything written or spoken is encoded and meaningless at the same time. It's kind of exhausting, even though it clocks in at under 200 pages. I'm about to read a fairly obscure book by Hugh MacLennan called Voices in Time, which is about a world where after a nuclear apocalypse the government tries to suppress all history related to WWII and the Nazis. I'm not quite sure why, but I presume that is part of the story.

Has anyone actually heard Ghost Note? This is the percussion line up from Snarky Puppy, supplemented with keyboards and bass. Somewhat more recently they have been touring with one or even two saxophones, though this isn't documented nearly as well on Youtube, for instance. The two saxophone line-up is coming to The Rex (in Toronto) at the end of Sept. I haven't totally made up my mind, but I'm leaning towards going. Actually night 1 is one saxophone and night 2 has two saxophones. It's probably the safer bet to just see them on night one, since it seems clear they don't really gig much (let alone rehearse) with 2 saxophones...

I'm about halfway through James Clifford's Routes, which is an anthropological study of travel and dislocation. It is quite similar to most modern anthropology tracts/treatises in that it is written in academicese. I think it is quite possible that the last anthropologist who could write for a general public was Clifford Geertz. I'm also starting Lem's Memoirs Found in a Bathtub.

I've definitely slowed down on the music acquisition front. I did recently pick up a rock CD - Day for Night by The Tragically Hip, and I just ordered Bill Evans's The Bill Evans Album (Columbia). This was mostly since it was the best jazz album I found under $7 (with only moderate searching) to get over the free shipping minimum.

I've seen Barbara Hannigan singing with the TSO, but it was a lot more restrained than this (George Benjamin's A Mind of Winter). She certainly didn't dress up as Britney Spears...