This is a photo that was taken during a recital with Krysztina Szabo at Tapestry Opera in Toronto’s Ernest Balmer Studio on March 21, 2020. This was one of the first livestream-only recitals with no live audience, happening right at the very beginning of the pandemic, and was the last recital of the 2019-2020 season in Toronto. A few days later, every performing venue shut down in the city.
The Toronto Pen Shoppe, Toronto’s newest pen store at the Distillery District. Nelmar Cornes is the owner and he plans on carrying some hard-to-find inks and papers in the coming months. 🖋️
The waiting room for my favorite barbershop.
The always-on mindset can be both a blessing and a curse for those of us in the creative arts:
Creativity is something you are, not only something you do. It’s a way of moving through the world, every minute, every day. If you’re not driven to an unrealistic standard of dedication, it may not be the path for you. So much of the artist’s work is about balance, so it’s ironic that this way of life leaves little room for it.
Once you acquiesce to the demands of the crative life, it becomes a part of you. Even in the midst of a project, you still look for new ideas each day. At any moment you’re prepared to stop what you’re doing to make a note or a drawing, or capture a fleeting thought. It becomes second nature. And we’re always in it, every hour of the day.
Currently reading: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin 📚
Finished reading: The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2) by Liu Cixin 📚
Pork ramen with spicy garlic broth: the perfect lunch for a dark, rainy summer day.
Over the next year, I aim to read at least one poem a day to see where it takes me and what I can discover in terms of authors, genres, forms. 📚
Today’s poems: A Far Cry from Africa and Nights in the Gardents of Port of Spain by Derek Walcott.
Currently reading: The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2) by Liu Cixin 📚
Celebrating the end of the week with Signal Hill whisky from St. John’s.
This was the end of my sixth week of the summer hearing online piano exams, with one more week to go before leaving for Winnipeg and Calgary to hear two weeks of in-person exams.
Oliver Burkeman in The Imperfectionist: Lists are menus
And here’s the kicker: aren’t all to-do lists really menus anyway, whether I choose to think of them that way or not? After all, if there are vastly more things I could do with any given hour or day than I actually can do – if there are a million ways to do good work, be a better parent, spouse or citizen, live healthily, and so on, yet only time for a handful – then in fact we’re always picking from a menu, even if we delude ourselves that what we’re doing is getting through a list.
Evening walk.
CJ Chilvers: Creativity vs. Productivity
Meta permanently ending news availability on its platforms in Canada starting today
As a Canadian, this is pretty serious news and it will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming months.
Traffic in downtown Toronto is terrible. Why does it seem that there is construction in every single street? No, I’m not driving.
A view of the building in Toronto used as the Khan Noonien-Singh Institute featured in Star Trek Strange New Worlds S2E3 (Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow). This is where I work. 🖖
Evening walk.
How to Learn Antyhing Fast: Teach Your Brain to Focus
Elizabeth Filips on science-backed ways to trick your brain into staying engaged.
Today’s haul from the Toronto Pen Shoppe at the Distillery. 🖋️
Great weather for spending time at the Distillery District this afternoon.
