It’s easy to get into a velvet cultural rut.

As we age, we know better what we like. With limited resources, whether in money or time or both, many of us gravitate to the tried-and-true.

This fall, more through accident than design, I ended up at a trio of “I’d never go to that” happenings. In each case, I’m glad I did.

The first launched during our Thursday-night read-through of Toronto’s NOW Magazine, which uncovered a preview article about a modern dance piece set to the music of Hamilton punk band Teenage Head, who came to prominence in the 1970s and ’80s. “I have to see this!” cried he. “Oh dear lord,” muttered she.

It turns out this was at the Citadel Theatre on Parliament Street, near where we live in Toronto. So modern dance in a tiny place? Yep, been to many of these in my life, including at the Citadel. But punk? Music to his ears, not mine. The cherry on this particular arts sundae for Chris was that, for one night only, the actual Teenage Head band (at least, the members who are still alive and playing together) would appear for an earplugs-mandatory set following the dance performance by Laurence Lemieux to the Teenage Head’s 1980 recording, Frantic City.

And so we went. The dance performance was familiar territory for me and the recorded music played at no-earplugs-needed level. Then four guys lumbered up to the front: left-hand bassist stage right, right-hand guitarist stage left, drummer in back and, in the middle, a “new” singer (in fact, a friend and contemporary of the group) who has taken over from original frontster Frankie Venom, who died in 2008.

From the first crashing chord, YES IT WAS LOUD LOUD LOUD. But it was more cheerful than angry and, soon enough, dancer Lemieux joined them on the platform stage, then encouraged audience members to join her, dancing in the cleared dance stage area in front of the platform. And so it came to pass that I spent a Saturday night zooming and bopping (earplugs still firmly shoved in place) along with a bunch of Toronto’s talented modern dance champions and one happy 6′ 4″ guy reliving memories of his youth.

As the theatre geek in our household, I go through the overabundance of Toronto theatre offerings on a regular basis to pick out interesting shows to see. I spotted The Royale at Soulpepper, which tussles with Canadian Stage for the title of “largest non-profit theatre company in Toronto” and is based at the Yonge Centre in Toronto’s Distillery District.

Not being a sports person, it didn’t appeal to me, based as it is on the story of an early 20th-century boxer in America, but I thought Chris might like it. He boxed earlier in his life, both for fitness and competition.

It helped that the lead actor was someone I knew from my Stratford Festival days, Dion Johnstone, and the play turned out to be riveting in performance: a brutal poetry that punched with words, not physical blows, to tell the story of the boxer who challenged the status quo and broke barriers but not without also inflicting pain on those he held dearest.

The last of the surprising trio came during a visit to the Royal Ontario Museum, where we have a membership that covers general admissions and access to special exhibitions. Since summer 2018, the ROM has been hyping its “Spiders: Fear and Fascination” exhibition. I’m not a “scream and run for the hills” type when it comes to spiders, but neither have I considered them interesting, so had zero interest in seeing a presentation on arachnids.

We booked  another ROM special exhibition one Saturday on sculpture created as fashion by Iris Van Halpern and it turned out to be both slight and underwhelming: less than half-an-hour later, we were outside the exhibition hall, saying, now what? “Well, we could always go see the spiders, you know,” says Chris, who had been gently jonesing for this for weeks. “All right, fine,” say I, figuring, after Teenage Head, how bad can a bunch of dead (and, it turns out, live) spiders be?

They were pretty fascinating, as it turns out. I learned there are three types of spiders: weavers, burrowers, and hunters. As the exhibition website explains: “Weavers entangle prey in intricate webs of silk. Hunters usually roam their habitat in search of prey. Burrowers eat, rest, and lay their eggs in hollows. They pounce on prey as it wanders past.”
It was mesmerizing to see the critters in action in the many short videos imbedded in the displays, including one of the smaller-than-pencil-eraser male “Peacock Spider,” which has a set of wingy-things that pop up to form an iridescent fan key to his showy courtship dancing.

I could spin more tales for you, or you could just get yourself to the ROM in Toronto, if you’re able to visit before the exhibition closes January 6. There’s a section on spiders in culture, including the original Spiderman comic book blown up to life size panels hinged on the wall, and talks from “spider wranglers” who, among other things, milk venom from live spider specimens. In this case, the parts weave together to be a much bigger sum: you’ll have your preconceptions challenged and, if you’re like me, say “wow!” a whole lot more frequently during your visit than you have in quite some time.

All spider photos courtesy Royal Ontario Museum.