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tetsabFor sure going to have split this one for format ...
January
February
March
The first week of this was pretty interesting 'cause with the exception of 'Virtual St Pats' (about the only possible way to ever get me to show up to a St Pats event) everything else could have just been my normal existence:
It's only when we hit a bit over a week that I do something I never would have done before and yet it's still kind of a local thing... on the 20th I join DJ Dwight's Hybrid stream and the day after that, online Choir!Choir!Choir (the latter I actually did go to in person so the 'online' was surely new). Another novel, but still local, thing on the 22nd with the Sabs Slide Salon where I present on '4 surprise rats' but the 'local' seal gets broken that evening when I attend Xiled online.
... and yet even then it's still my wider social network at play 'cause I know Arcanus from a.g. stuff. That pattern continues on the 27th when I tune into martin oldgoth (who I'd already been listening to his thirteen13 show for a donkey's age before alla this) but also expands another leap 'cause I also tune into a comedy show 'cause I know Matt Ardill (and a standup show is probably something I'd only ever do like this) and then expands another league with a performance by a fully new-to-me (yet still Canadian) band: Ghost Twin.
It's more "could have been in the before-times stuff" on the 28th with more remote writing paired with the oddness of another local DJ streaming in my living room (Ivan Palmer). I end the month with one last local in my living room on the 29th (the Darkness Forever duo) but also tune in for more Sabs slides and benefit from Richard Thompson doing a stream (something that would fit well with my periodic attendance at Acoustic Harvest).
Mercifully I'm not going to keep going like this ('cause I don't think it makes for scintillating reading!) but I did want to call out the strangeness where in the start it was like a whole new life experience for everyone and yet somehow much of my 'normal' life was still bled right into it. Even in my work life I'd been what they are now calling 'hybrid' so even working from home wasn't new (even if never going in was!). It would be in April when the floodgates would really open and all of sudden I'd be listening to Twitch and Mixcloud streams from all over the world... and more FB video than I'd ever done in my life before or after. In April only the 1st, 2nd, and 7th have nothing in my calendar. In May, every day had something and the 9th had nine things. That pattern would continue through November with only a few days where there was nothing captured (which on some level you didn't even need as there'd always been some sort of stream on, pretty much always).
By end of June I'd started building a Whole Dang Spreadsheet to track the music side of it in the dominant platform.
Speaking of spreadsheets, that was my initial 'brilliant' idea for how I'd tackle all the online stuff. I'd wanted to capture if any given event was a band/singer performing online, a DJ, a theatre production, a social gathering that previously would have been an IRL thing, a volunteer meeting (most of these also used to be IRL) or a webinar. I'd have also tracked whether it was something that was offered by a local and if not if it was from the US/UK/Australia/Russia/somewhere else in Canada or Europe (with 95% of 'Europe' actually being 'Germany'). Finally I'd track the platform that was used (FB video vs. Google Meet vs. Mixcloud vs. Twitch vs. Web Radio vs. YouTube vs. Zoom) and how this evolved as things went on (Twitch murdered off many other options!) but given that it took almost 2 hours just to get to get from April 1 to May 8th and that alone represented over 100 'events' I gave this up as Not A Good Use of Time. :)
Instead I'll just note the paltry number of IRL life things I did the rest of the year here and save select commentary for What I Did Online in 2020/'21 for its own post:
July
August
Sept/Oct
November
December
January
- 06th: Danforth working group
- 08th: CycleTO 'All Captains meeting' (even though I ain't one... I'm just one of the closest they've got in this Ward)
- 18th: CycleTO Advocacy Forum (AKA another day of hanging out in City Hall)
- 23rd: Bikeways & Businesses on Bloor talk
- 27th: Danforth Complete Streets Consult
- 30th: That fundraiser by my org again
- 31st: Little India for birthday dinner with my Mum and sister
February
- 01st: Tea-fest at the Toronto reference library (I still have some of the very tasty cherry white tea left)
- 03rd: Off to Alberta again for that work thing (which I think is becoming questionably 'nice' at this point...)
- 04th: ... but did involve some cross country skiing which was nice even if it was basically on 2 ice tracks (slow & fast tracks... instead of just scooting randomly around some woods) where I fell on my ass a hundred times
- 13th: Danforth working group x2
- 15th: Mysterious evening_tsar dinner (I say mysterious 'cause normally I try like the dickens not to go anywhere in Feb & can't think of any special occasion on this timing)
- 21st: Shadowplay
- 26th: 'Livestream: Five Good Ideas about building power for change'
- 27th: Last dang pre-pandemic concert: Devin Townsend at the Phoenix
March
- 07th: Toronto East Cyclists in the morning / unwittingly the first & last music quiz of the year in the evening
- 09th: Queer Narratives (hosted by a friend of mine!)
- 10th: Friends of Oakidge park farewell get-together for a core member (she organized the clothing swaps & was leavin' town)
The first week of this was pretty interesting 'cause with the exception of 'Virtual St Pats' (about the only possible way to ever get me to show up to a St Pats event) everything else could have just been my normal existence:
- 14th: Remote writing session (did these pre-pandemic)
- 16th: Systems Thinking Ontario (I only ever join these online)
- 17th: the aforementioned Sabs Patricks Day
- 18th: Strategies, Tools & Best Practices on CRM Project Delivery (another thing I'd typically attend online, though not always)
It's only when we hit a bit over a week that I do something I never would have done before and yet it's still kind of a local thing... on the 20th I join DJ Dwight's Hybrid stream and the day after that, online Choir!Choir!Choir (the latter I actually did go to in person so the 'online' was surely new). Another novel, but still local, thing on the 22nd with the Sabs Slide Salon where I present on '4 surprise rats' but the 'local' seal gets broken that evening when I attend Xiled online.
... and yet even then it's still my wider social network at play 'cause I know Arcanus from a.g. stuff. That pattern continues on the 27th when I tune into martin oldgoth (who I'd already been listening to his thirteen13 show for a donkey's age before alla this) but also expands another leap 'cause I also tune into a comedy show 'cause I know Matt Ardill (and a standup show is probably something I'd only ever do like this) and then expands another league with a performance by a fully new-to-me (yet still Canadian) band: Ghost Twin.
It's more "could have been in the before-times stuff" on the 28th with more remote writing paired with the oddness of another local DJ streaming in my living room (Ivan Palmer). I end the month with one last local in my living room on the 29th (the Darkness Forever duo) but also tune in for more Sabs slides and benefit from Richard Thompson doing a stream (something that would fit well with my periodic attendance at Acoustic Harvest).
Mercifully I'm not going to keep going like this ('cause I don't think it makes for scintillating reading!) but I did want to call out the strangeness where in the start it was like a whole new life experience for everyone and yet somehow much of my 'normal' life was still bled right into it. Even in my work life I'd been what they are now calling 'hybrid' so even working from home wasn't new (even if never going in was!). It would be in April when the floodgates would really open and all of sudden I'd be listening to Twitch and Mixcloud streams from all over the world... and more FB video than I'd ever done in my life before or after. In April only the 1st, 2nd, and 7th have nothing in my calendar. In May, every day had something and the 9th had nine things. That pattern would continue through November with only a few days where there was nothing captured (which on some level you didn't even need as there'd always been some sort of stream on, pretty much always).
By end of June I'd started building a Whole Dang Spreadsheet to track the music side of it in the dominant platform.
Speaking of spreadsheets, that was my initial 'brilliant' idea for how I'd tackle all the online stuff. I'd wanted to capture if any given event was a band/singer performing online, a DJ, a theatre production, a social gathering that previously would have been an IRL thing, a volunteer meeting (most of these also used to be IRL) or a webinar. I'd have also tracked whether it was something that was offered by a local and if not if it was from the US/UK/Australia/Russia/somewhere else in Canada or Europe (with 95% of 'Europe' actually being 'Germany'). Finally I'd track the platform that was used (FB video vs. Google Meet vs. Mixcloud vs. Twitch vs. Web Radio vs. YouTube vs. Zoom) and how this evolved as things went on (Twitch murdered off many other options!) but given that it took almost 2 hours just to get to get from April 1 to May 8th and that alone represented over 100 'events' I gave this up as Not A Good Use of Time. :)
Instead I'll just note the paltry number of IRL life things I did the rest of the year here and save select commentary for What I Did Online in 2020/'21 for its own post:
July
- Seems evening_tsar came to visit. First human in months!
August
- Dinner with my sister/Mum. First visit to humans in months!
Sept/Oct
- 'tsar x3
November
- 07th: Day of the Dead Art projected on the side of the RC Harris filtration plant (followed by NaDruWriNi)
- 14th: 'tsar
December
- 05th: 'tsar
- 24th: Mum/sister at Xmas... and that was that!