Toronto Blue Jays 2019 Opening Day

This is Marcus Stroman throwing the first pitch of the Toronto Blue Jays 2019 season. Many believe the rebuilding Jays will win just 70 games but I think they will come out flying, fade in the summer and rally again in September to end with an 80-82 record. Yes, it is optimistic.

I love opening day. Seeing the upgrades to the stadium, the first look at our team. All the ceremony before the game.

Here is Jamie Campbell from Sportsnet and a team of annalists doing a pregame broadcast in their booth in left field.

I thought this was cool. The broadcast schedule for the cameraman.

Hazel Mae, Sportsnet's long time on field reporter.

Here are Teena and I. First shot is with my camera and the second, much better shot with Teena's.

Just before the national anthems.

Baseball Hall of Fame (2018) pitcher Jack Morris, who was instrumental in the Blue Jays winning the 1992 World series, threw out the first pitch. Ironic as he went into the Hall as a Detroit Tiger, who the Jays were playing today. He probably will do the same at Detroit's home opener.

Manager/umpire meeting at the plate.

I had four players in today's game who are on my Rumrunners fantasy team ... Marcus Stroman, photo at top, Teoscar Hernandez, below, who broke up Zimmerman's no hit bid.

Christin Stewart from Detroit, below, who hit a two-run home run in the top of the 10th to win the game for the Tigers. Good for the Rumrunners, very bad for the Jays.

Good timing on this shot of a Jays double play but a little blurry.

I also have Justin Smoak, who went hitless but should have a great season.

Marcus threw a terrific game. That's not his photo on the right.

Final game numbers. Everybody in Toronto is commenting how the game wasn't a sellout but 45,048 fans is an excellent turnout anytime!

Although the Jays won't be in the running for a playoff spot and are in rebuild mode, I'm looking forward to a fun season watching all the up and coming young guns.

Bit Rot by Douglas Coupland

Today I finished Bit Rot by one of my favourite writers, Douglas Coupland.

Bit Rot, a new collection from Douglas Coupland that explores the different ways 20th-century notions of the future are being shredded, is a gem of the digital age. Reading Bit Rot feels a lot like bingeing on Netflix... you can't stop with just one. "Bit rot" is a term used in digital archiving to describe the way digital files can spontaneously and quickly decompose. As Coupland writes, "Bit rot also describes the way my brain has been feeling since 2000, as I shed older and weaker neurons and connections and enhance new and unexpected ones."

Bit Rot explores the ways humanity tries to make sense of our shifting consciousness. Coupland, just like the Internet, mixes forms to achieve his ends. Short fiction is interspersed with essays on all aspects of modern life. The result is addictively satisfying for Coupland's legion of fans hungry for his observations about our world. For almost three decades, his unique pattern recognition has powered his fiction, and his phrase-making. Every page of Bit Rot is full of wit, surprise and delight.

I really enjoyed Bit Rot. The description above says the book is full of essays but they're not really essays but what I would call musings. Most are only 2 or 3 pages in length. Almost all are thoughtful or hilarious. I found most to be true. Written in 2015, it all still rings true 3 years later. Some of his thoughts on the future of humanity even seem to be uneasily accurate.

If you are a fan, you'll enjoy a few appearances from the Channel 3 news team. I wonder what he has against them. For a book of short stories and such, like this one, I always enjoy reading it in short bursts, a story or two a sitting. as a result it took me awhile to finish it.

Douglas Coupland never disappoints.

About Douglas Coupland

Douglas Coupland is Canadian, born on a Canadian Air Force base near Baden-Baden, Germany, on December 30, 1961. In 1965 his family moved to Vancouver, Canada, where he continues to live and work. Coupland has studied art and design in Vancouver, Canada, Milan, Italy and Sapporo, Japan. 

His first novel, Generation X, was published in March of 1991. Since then he has published nine novels and several non-fiction books in 35 languages and most countries on earth. He has written and performed for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, England, and in 2001 resumed his practice as a visual artist, with exhibitions in spaces in North America, Europe and Asia. 

Play - The Woods are Dark and Deep

This evening Teena and I went to see The Woods are Dark and Deep at the Factory Theatre at the corner of Bathurst and Adelaide.

They came to Canada to find a better life, and ended up sacrificing their freedom. Our story follows a small group of Serbian and Ukrainian immigrants who ended up in a Canadian internment camp during WWI. 

This is Pulse Theatre’s fifth production and we are very excited to work with a mix of old and new collaborators. This show is dedicated to immigrants and is a celebration of the sacrifices they made for this country to be able to grow, both economically and democratically. Based on historical events.

Canada, as great a country as it is, does have some shameful events regarding refugees in its past like turning away Jewish refugees and Japanese internment camps in World War Two. This is something I had never heard of before, the internment of Serbian and Ukrainian immigrants, known as "enemy aliens" in the First World War. From 1914 to 1920, Canada interned 8,579 enemy aliens in 24 receiving stations and internment camps. They cleared forests for parks, including Banff National Park.

Little is known about this but was heavily researched by Mladen Obradovic, who wrote and plays Nebojsa in this production

The play revolves around a group of workers clearing a forest. One now hates Canada because of what had happened and another, Janko, is in love with a young woman, Claire, he met before being arrested and interned for the remainder of the war for incorrect paperwork. The three men and the family they are friends with lead a hard life in the forest.

I thought Dewy Stewart, who played Janko, was excellent as was Mila Jokic, as the hopelessly romantic and optimistic daughter of the family, Olessya.

Too bad the play is not running longer. There was a large crowd for this performance and it is a well-acted and produced play, plus a story worth telling.

A Tight Toronto Rock Victory

Tonight the 7-3 Toronto Rock took on the 2-9 Rochester KnightHawks in front of 12,873 enthusiastic fans. It was a wild affair.

Being the night before St Patrick's Day, a drum and pipe band joined in the opening ceremonies.

Rona and Jacob joined Teena and I for the game. It was the first time for both and they loved it.

Team meeting before the action starts

Opening face-off. Rona pointed out that the Rock were losing the majority of face-offs. The end of game stats proved her right. The Rock only won 33.3%.

Some game action.

The game was tight throughout with the Rock leading by 5-4 at the end of the first quarter and 10-8 at the half.

Iggy was there working the crowd.

More action.

The Toronto Rock cheerleaders performed a few times.

 Nope. We didn't win today. It would have been nice.

At the end of the third quarter, the Rock still led by two goals 13-11.

With just over a minute to go, Rochester scored to come within a goal of tying it up. With their goalie pulled, Damon Edwards charged down the court and put in the empty net clincher for a 15-13 Toronto win.

Game stats.

The win puts the Rock into second place in their division. They have a chance of clinching a playoff spot with their two away games next weekend. The top 4 teams make the playoffs with 1st place taking on the 4th place team and 2nd and 3rd clashing in the other.

In two weeks the Rock are at home against the Philadelphia Wings. We'll be there.

I'll end with an artsy, unexpected photo of the game.

An Afternoon at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)

In December, I won a pair of tickets to the AGO during an event I attended put on by the Canadian Authors Association. Except for seeing a special exhibit featuring Edvard Munch works including his famous The Scream, I hadn't been since my junior high days. That wasn't yesterday. Teena had never been. Today we fixed that by heading to the gallery and using our tickets.

The Art Gallery of Ontario is one of the largest art museums in North America with close to 95,000 works from all over the world, many of them being centuries old. It's a collection of paintings, sculptures, artifacts and photography, as well as collaborations with museums from around the world.

There is so much to see that we skipped the special exhibition on Impressionism in the Age of Industry: Monet, Pissarro and More.

I found after my afternoon there that while I was taken with many paintings, it was the sculptures which I was really taken by, whether abstract or realism. Maybe it is the three dimensional aspect I enjoy.

Here are a few of what caught my eye during the day along with my comments:

Away Game and Home Game, 2014,  Karen Kraven from London, ON. The depth is cool.

Whenever I think of paintings, I always think of them being living room size. What makes an artist decide what to paint large is small is interesting. All the rooms were large and mostly empty in the middle except for seats so people cold sit or stand back to admire form a distance.

British artist Henry Moore, crafted The Archer, a work of art which was unveiled in front of Toronto's City Hall in 1966. An entire room in the AGO is dedicated to his sculptures.

This one is called Draped Seated Woman, 1957-58

Draped Reclining Woman, 1957-58

Reclining Figure, 1951. I think this too, is a woman.

Warrior with Shield, 1954. This was donated to the gallery in 1955 as a gift from the Junior Woman's Committee fund. Interesting it was donated so quickly after being unveiled. I'm glad it was.. I found the piece fascinating and took photo's of it from many angles. This one was the best

The room from another angle. After today I might have to learn more about Mr. Moore. Teena has many more works from this room in her post.

Again this gives you the idea of space in each room.

I really liked Soldier and Girl at Station from 1953. Artist was unnamed. One of my favourites of the day.

This is the kind of modern art I don't get.

The frame becomes part of the piece in this painting. Teena thought the man in the frame was dreaming about the past which I think is a good interpretation.

When I looked up close at this painting by one of Canada's famous group of seven, I could see how the artist, (darn, I wish I had noted which artist it was) made the water shimmer the way it did.

A look at how paintings are displayed.

Again I didn't note the artist but was amazed at how when I looked close at these two paintings, how the simplest of strokes brought out so much detail when viewed from a short distance away.

I really liked this piece. My goal for this year is to take a photo of a railway track from a similar angle. There is something I really enjoy about the straight lines of train tracks.

This piece had both Teena and I taking a up-close look for about five minutes. Don Valley on a Grey Day, 1972, by William Kurelek from Alberta has a hidden crucifix in it. We never found it. I just researched it and now know where it is. No, I'm not telling you.

This hall features bronzes called The Body in fragments, a style which was popular with many artists from 1890 to 1960.

In the late 1880's, French artist Auguste Rodin famously caused outrage in Paris by exhibiting sculptures of fragmented bodies. he inspired subsequent generations of modern sculptors, including Henry Moore,to experiment more radically. Pushing the body further toward pure abstraction, these artists depicted the human form as distressed and disjointed, industrially streamlined and erotically charged.

Torso for Ile-de-France, 1921 by Aristide Maillol

Henry Moore's Helmet Head No. 2, 1955

Head of a Woman (Fernande) by Pablo Picasso. Picasso met Fernande Oliver in 1904. She modeled for the piece in 1909 and he cast it 1910-1914. It was purchased by the AGO in 1949. I would love to know what she really looked like.

I found Auguste Rodin's Seated Torso, around 1890-91, very intriguing.

Even the stairs in the AGO are artistic.

Not sure what to make of Jim Dine's Black Bathroom #2 from 1962

A famous work by Andy Warhol, Elvis I and II, 1963-64

Another piece I'm not sure of but found intriguing, Painting #147, 1959, by Luis Feito which is on display for the very first time since it's purchase in 1962.

Another work by Henry Moore, Mother and Child , 1953

Decorative Figure, 1908 by Henri Matisse.

I found this piece Tenants, 1939-40 by Montreal artist Marian Dale Scott to be eerie, haunting and amazing.

This is such a beautiful and detail piece of work by John William Waterhouse. "I am half sick of shadows,' said The Lady of Shalott", 1915. Teena and I took some extra time to look at this one.

Talk about looking back in time. Pope Gregory wrote his Commentary of the Book of Job way back in 1397-98. It looks so fragile. It's amazing it has survived all these centuries.

Even older is this bible done in Latin from around 1250. Both were so incredible to see.

It was a very interesting day. The AGO is certainly worth a visit.