Wednesday and Thursday (so far)

[rfmcdonald]

I decided to tarry for a bit at the Hostel, but I managed to get to the Art Gallery of Ontario by 10:30. I spent the next hour and a half there, and I was suitably impressed. A more in-depth consideration of my feelings about the Art Gallery's collection will appear in this forum later, but suffice it to say that I was particularly impressed by the gallery's collection of early Canadian art, Henry Moore's organic/weathered statuary, the medieval and early-modern ivory carvings, and the excellent Käthe Kollwitz exhibition.

I left before 1 o'clock and I walked down to the Chapter's bookstore by the Paramount theatre. I browsed some books--I skimmed Orson Scott Card's new novel Shadow Puppets, latest novel in the Ender's Game series, and yes, it's quite bad, with geopolitical scenarios the likes of which I'd have devised at the age of 9 when I still believed in the mysterious connection between the sunken continent of Atlantis and the UFOs which genetically engineered homo sapiens sapiens. (For starters, Turkish horse cavalry successfully conquering Xinjiang in an era when humans are launching starships and blowing up planets?) Never mind that the writing isn't very good, either.

After Chapter's, I walked up to Queen Street, past City Hall to the Eaton's Centre. I stood in a line-up for half an hour to get my tarot card reading, but unfortunately she closed up shop, which sucked. Afterwards, I went and browsed the Indigo bookstore before walking west on Dundas. The Dundas-Spadina intersection that is the nucleus of Chinatown was fascinating to walk through, as was Kensington Market (as I walked back to the hostel.) When I got back, I slept for a bit.





I then got up at 6 o'clock. to walk down to (eventually Metro Hall and the BIMOT meeting), but with the main goal of going to the Queen Mother Café on Queen Street, recommended in my Rough Guide for its Asian fusion cuisine. I had a glass of the house white wine with sticky rice and dim sum at 7:15, and with a minimum of confusion I headed down to the Metro Hall.

The meeting was quite good; I met interesting people (or saw them again, hi Rick!), talked about interesting things, and whatnot. Then we went to Hey Lucy! for martinis (I'd two cosmopolitans, along with the bowl of house soup) and more conversation (including Toronto versus New York City). I left early at quarter after 11, to pack, with L.; he walked me as far as Spadina, and I walked up that to College and then over to Augusta. Then, packing and sleep.





The first thing that I did in the morning (after my shower, and last-minute tidying for packing) was to walk down to the Royal Bank ATM at Spadina and College. Direct deposit of my pay into my account came one day early, which was very appreciated. I then went to a convenience store to buy a razor so that I could shave a bit (avoiding a beard for a not-indecent scruff) and elsewhere for a coffee.

I left the College Hostel at 10:00, and went to Union Station (College streetcar with transfer at Queen's Park). The only sour note in my preparation--I arrived two hours before my Train (#44, leaving Union Station at 12:35 for Kingston and subsequent stops at Brockville, Smiths Falls, Followfield, and Ottawa)--was that my ISIC card had expired last December (!) and I had to pay another 40 dollars to get my ticket. I'm thinking of it as a stupidity tax. That aside, it went well, and I boarded the train without any problems apart from a last-minute unwarranted concern that I couldn't take two carry-on bags along with my suitcase (but repacking gave me something to do).

The last time I'd gone on a train was my trip last year from Richmond (hi Tommy!) to New York City (hi Jonathan and Naomi!) on Amtrak. VIA Rail, in contrast to Amtrak, ran a very professional, efficient, and generally non-problematic trip two hours long, and more than two-thirds full. I sat; I wrote a bit (mainly my 2400AD project); I read a bit; I watched Lake Ontario when it was visible from the tracks (at 1:20, at 1:30 near Port Hope; the lake's waves look smaller and the beaches far less dune-ish than the sea and beaches on PEI); I drank a white wine that I bought (a 2001 Château des Charmes from the Niagara Peninsula); and I thought.





Tuesday evening when I was talking to James, drag got touched on briefly, as a misogynistic thing. Just before the train passed by Lake Ontario for the first time, I realized that was true, in fact. For perhaps most confirmed Kinsey 6s, a drag queen might well be the most feminine object of interest that they'll ever have. If the drag queens are all catty superficial bitches mainly concerned with manipulating people, well ... You wouldn't need to be gay not to have any relationships with women if you accepted that mindset as at all representative of biological women. Erin, Christine, what do you think of it?

This fits, I suppose, with a broader concern of mine about GLBT culture as I've seen it in Toronto. Perhaps I'm critical, but far too much of it strikes me as glossily superficial, as unrealistic and decadent. Numerous occasions sitting on Church Street I've felt disconnected from the entire scene, and I don't think I'm wrong or alone in feeling this way. There's a lot of good, but there's a lot of dross. Ah, future unrealizable plans.





I've only been in Kingston for three hours (a bit more including my 2:40 arrival and the bus trip in), but so far I really like what I've seen. I got dropped off at the corner of Princess and Wellington by the bus.

I then proceeded to walk to the Downtown Kingston Bed and Breakfast, passing by St. George's Cathedral on the way. It's quite excellent; I've got a sumptuously-appointed room for 45 dollars, and it would rise only to 55 dollars in on-season. The host, Wilma Taras, was quite genial; her husband, a painter, specializes in painting a sort of Ontario-themed genre patterned after Emily Carr, based on his thesis on mysticism in Canadian painting.

After dropping my bags off, I walked down to the waterfront and the local tourist information centre where I picked up a map, got apprised of the local attractions and their locations, and found the location of Phnom Penh, a restaurant specializing in Thai and Cambodian cuisine. Thanks, Ikram, for suggesting it to me!

And now, hmm. I'm not sure what I'll do next; probably just wander in downtown Kingston for a bit. There's a Durant book on the nature of history I'd like to pick up.



And yes, I'm having great fun!

(Oh, Rick, Craig--would it be possible for us to meet up, individually I guess, Saturday evening the 26th? My dance card, I guess, is empty.)