Author: JWF

Book Bounty

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BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS

I have always been a book person.   When I was a toddler, my mother would take me in the Taylor Tot (a popular stroller, very basic by today’s standards) to the nearby branch library for bunches of picture books.

I was an early and avid reader and  soon bored by the Dick and Jane series.  In 3rd grade, I recall being so engaged in silent reading period that I had be called back to attention after everyone else had moved on to the next assignment.  I think the book in question was The Secret Garden. 

Resources in my family were limited so we didn’t purchase a lot of books.  A real treat was the box that would arrive from England at Christmas, the packages inside colorfully wrapped and tied with thin white ribbon.  The wrapping paper was always slightly frayed at the edges as if the journey across the water had been a rough one, and you could see just a hint of the book cover.  These were books from the Bishops and there was one for each of my sisters and me.  My grandparents had met Mr. and Mrs. Bishop on one of their trips abroad (perhaps on sabbatical), and this couple, whom I never met, never failed to give us books each year for a number of years.  I particularly remember some of the Noddy books about a boy puppet.

Since then, books have continued to feature prominently in our Christmas and birthday giving.  My siblings and I all have Amazon Wish Lists and mine is mostly books.  While I’m happy to receive selected titles for my Kindle, I still derive great pleasure from the look (different fonts and attractive covers), feel (different sizes), and heft of hardback and paperback books.  This year was no different.  Here are some recent gifts plus others, several of which I’ve already read.

RECENT AND UPCOMING READING

Falling:  A Daughter, A Father, and a Journey Back by Elisha Cooper.  It is a devastating moment when your young child is diagnosed with cancer.  Children’s book author Cooper movingly in lovely straightforward prose shares his emotions and the impact Zoe’s illness has on him and the rest of the family.  He candidly recounts episodes of anger when he just plain lost it.  But he also reminds us of the preciousness of everyday life.  It was a difficult journey, but for this family, one with a good result.

All at Sea: A Memoir by Decca Aitkenhead.  It is often said that it is harder to recover from a loved one’s sudden death than from death after illness.  Aitkenhead’s spouse drowned in Jamaica before her very eyes.  This is her account of that event interwoven with the story of Tony’s life and how she and her two young sons coped afterward.  Mostly it’s about Tony, a man I found a surprising choice for this journalist.  He had a criminal record, had spent time in jail, had been a drug dealer, and was still growing and selling marijuana after he and Decca got together.  His moral compass was widely divergent from mine and so, at times, I found it hard to fathom his appeal.  It’s an affecting, poignant book and a heartfelt tribute to a man who ultimately gave his all for his sons.  

News of the World by Paulette Jiles.  A finalist for the National Book Award, this novel is by an author previously unknown to me.  Set in Texas in 1870, it presents an intriguing slice of western history.  Small towns did not get much news beyond the local which meant that Captain Jefferson Kidd, a former printer and retired soldier, would draw an audience for readings of articles from big city papers like the Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Tribune, and London Daily News.  When offered a princely sum to transport a former Indian captive, 10-year old Johanna, all the way south to San Antonio to her aunt and uncle, he reluctantly agrees.  Traveling through rough country always mindful of being ambushed or attacked, the Captain (Kep-dun to her) and Johanna move from silent resignation to the flowering of a fragile friendship.  This unlikely pair is finely drawn and I found myself fully engaged and rooting for both of them.

The Book that Matters Most by Ann Hood.  The premise here is an attractive one—a monthly book club where each person selects and then leads a discussion about the work that had the most impact for him or her—and there were no real surprises about the books chosen.  As a framework for this novel, it’s mostly successful in showing Ava re-engage with friends and come to terms with her husband’s departure after 25 years of marriage.  The subplot about her wayward college daughter’s ventures into the drug scene abroad was less convincing, mostly because I don’t think a mother would be that gullible.  For a work by this author I like better, try The Obituary Writer.  

Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan.  My son introduced me to this Scottish author.  I’ve just started this beautiful novel about a priest published in 2006.

Novels, Tales, Journeys by Andrew Pushkin.  This book of almost all of 19th century Russian poet Pushkin’s prose was an unexpected gift and one I’m looking forward to enjoying.

Owls Do Cry by Janet Frame.  Occasionally I even buy myself books before Christmas.  I’ve known of New Zealander Janet Frame for a long time, but never have read any of her works.  Published in 1957, this early novel provides a perspective on mental illness.  On my to-be-read list.

Evicted:  Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond.  I’ve read this one, but more about it after my island book group discusses it later this month.

Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3:  The War Years & After, 1939-1962 by Blanche Wiesen Cook.  I found volumes 1 and 2 fascinating and, having started this last volume, will finish it.

The Little Red Chairs by Edna O’Brien.  Novel by celebrated Irish writer which has received much acclaim.  On my to-be-read list.

Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance.  I think this memoir about growing up poor will make a good pairing with Evicted.  To be read.

 

Note:  Stroller images from www.worthpoint.com

More Manhattan: Movies & Meals

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More gorging on films and satisfying meals.  We saw three more movies, the best being Hidden Figures, and returned to a recent restaurant find on W. 13th Street called Gradisca.

Things to Come. While the Chief Penguin saw Neruda, I settled myself in for Isabelle Huppert in L’Avenir, The Future. I much prefer the French title for this film about a professor whose husband of 25 years leaves her for another woman. It’s both an intellectual film, and to me, very French. Both Nathalie and her husband, Heinz, are philosophy professors.  She exposes her students to Rousseau and has had a successful track record of publication, including several widely used textbooks. Nathalie has two almost-adult children and a mother who is both ill and demanding.

When her husband departs and her responsibilities for children and mother cease, she must figure out how to live her life now that she has no ties and is free. Her closest relationship apart from her children is with Fabien, a former student and a radical who has moved to the mountains. The film employs none of the plot devices (an affair, e.g.) one might expect from an American version of this situation. Rather it’s Nathalie’s slowly unfolding journey from resignation coupled with grief and loneliness to a subdued acceptance of life as it is now. It’s subtitled with bits of English and German and an occasionally haunting soundtrack that ranges from classical to American popular music.

Patriots’ Day.  Some might wonder why we would go see a film about a catastrophic event, but we did and it was mostly an uplifting experience. This film about the Boston Marathon explosions of 2013 is a sensitive depiction of the events of that tumultuous week. The scenes of the actual event are graphic and horrifying, but most of the focus of the film is on the city and law enforcement’s race to find the bombers. Local and state politicians, FBI, and police officers are all portrayed along with the lead, Tommy Saunders, a police sergeant played by Mark Wahlberg.  Saunders is a composite of several real individuals.

I had forgotten some of the particulars of the ferocious gun battle in Watertown and that it took almost a week before the two brothers were located and dealt with. While one critic thought the coda was unnecessary and too long, I found seeing and hearing from some of the individuals injured or involved further testament to the spirit of a city that became Boston Strong. Director Peter Berg also directed Deepwater Horizon, released earlier this year.

Hidden Figures. Off all the films we’ve seen in New York this trip, this was the best! It deals with the long overlooked achievements of three extremely smart and feisty black women. They worked for NASA in Virginia in the early 1960’s when overt racism was the norm. There were separate restrooms and separate coffee pots for black people and, heaven forbid, if women thought they could become engineers or anything other than seemingly low level calculators. The NASA team at Langley is working hard to prepare for John Glenn’s launch.  There’s a key scene when he visits and is being introduced to some of the staff.  The black women are standing off separately and he’s being hurried along past them.  But Glenn slows down and insists on greeting them and shaking hands with several, a wonderful moment of human inclusiveness.

The audience was about two-thirds black and at the end of the film there was a spontaneous round of applause. After photos of the real pioneers appeared on the screen receiving awards including one given by President Obama, a black man in the back of the theater quietly intoned, “our president.” This is a seriously good film with notes of humor as you get pieces of the private lives of Catherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson. See it!

Gradisca.  A small Italian restaurant where grandmother makes the tortellini by hand at a small table at the side of the dining room.  Pastas are excellent and the main dishes, especially the veal with fungi, very tasty.  Wait staff are gracious and helpful.

Header photo:  www.cinemablend.com

Big Screen in the Big Apple

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Bingeing. When we are not happily engaged entertaining our granddaughters, we go to the movies. Some might say we binge. Yes, good films come to the Sarasota/Bradenton area, but not as quickly and not all of them. We are now well acquainted with several cinemas in the West Village and are not averse to settling for a hot dog as lunch before the first showing of the day. Here are several of the films we’ve seen so far. More to come.

La La Land. Going in, I knew that this film was being touted as a contender for Best Picture and that it was a musical. In the first 20 minutes or so, I thought, oh no, we’re in for two hours of fluff and the Chief Penguin will soon be snoozing. Not so! Yes, this movie is sort of a musical (the leads do burst into song at emotion-laden moments) and boy meets girl and gets girl (at least for awhile), but it is much more. Scenes of true-to-life conversation and conflict are interspersed along with creative visions of an alternate reality. That the setting is Los Angeles, Hollywood to be precise, only adds to the magic.
Ryan Gosling as Sebastian and Emma Stone as Mia are likable and believable 20-something adults, each aspiring to realize a dream; he to own his own jazz club and she to make it as an actress. I left last week’s performance of Guys and Dolls feeling happy and uplifted. While La La Land is a more nuanced work, I was both entertained and satisfied as it played out. Perhaps it’s a tad too long, but it’s fun on several levels.

Fences. If you know ahead of time that this was first a stage play, then you’ll be prepared for the static nature of this film. It’s probably the one weakness or drawback to it. The year is 1957, the setting is Pittsburgh, and it’s the depiction of one stressed and poor black family.
The acting is powerful, especially the lead performances. Denzel Washington is Troy Maxson, the illiterate, storytelling garbage collector who craves recognition for who and what he is, a husband and father who has a strong sense of responsibility. He also feels responsible for and possibly guilty over his brother Gabe, brain damaged in WWII. Viola Davis is his wife Rose, his staunch advocate and compass who seems to work as hard as he does, but with little appreciation from him of her unexpressed wishes and desires.
Troy’s sons, Lyons, 34, and Corey, 17, are sources of tension and conflict when Troy won’t accept that their needs and wants don’t dovetail with his. And when Troy doesn’t heed his best friend Bono’s wise advice and is promoted at work, he no longer sees Bono every day and the friendship languishes. (Note that Bono is played here by a black albino which confused me since I initially thought he might be white.)
Fences is the best known play in August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle. The world is slowly changing for the better for blacks, but not enough that Troy can or will see it. Moving and messy as only human relationships can be, this is a film worth seeing.

Arrival. This is a strange movie. Science fiction which we don’t often go see, but more cerebral than one might expect. When twelve space ships containing aliens from somewhere else land around the world, one in Montana, linguistics professor and language expert Louise Banks, played by Amy Adams, is recruited to communicate with them. Their language is a graphic one, and Banks and Ian, a physicist played by Jeremy Renner, struggle together to make sense of who they are and why they have come to earth.

The scenes of Louise and Ian suiting up and making the journey into the black space egg and then communicating with the looming, long-armed heptapods in front of a glass wall are appropriately unnerving and even somewhat harrowing. Tension rises when several countries with similar craft threaten to use force against them. How the day is saved is an interesting twist.
Throughout the movie plays with time and how time is perceived. Louise is plagued by visions and memories of past events, or are they really past? The movie takes a short story by Ted Chiang, “Story of Your Life,” and expands its scope to create the international crisis. I didn’t fully understand what filmmaker Denis Villeneuve was doing until I read several articles including one in Verge. Telling would spoil the film for you, so I won’t. If your curiosity is piqued, see it.

DINING FIND
It’s easy and tempting to return again and again to just our favorite restaurants, but it’s better to not get into a rut and to try new restaurants. After yesterday’s film at the IFC on 6th Avenue, we glanced at the menu at Tertulia and then wandered in. We had enjoyed very much the food in Spain and thought this tapas plus place looked inviting. And it was.

Warmly lit with brick walls, a long bar and tables in front and an arched dining area farther back, it was just right for lunch on a cold day. We indulged in a glass of sherry (lots of choices here) and then tucked into ham croquettes, a plate of blistered shishito peppers, and some Iberico ham along side tomato bread. We were aiming for a light lunch and this turned out to be the right amount of food. We look forward to a return visit!

Sarasota Scene: Holiday Happenings

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Fabulous Fun.  Asolo Repertory Theater’s production of Guys and Dolls is the perfect antidote for any lingering post-election blues.  Energetic, boisterous, lively, romantic, it’s hard to find enough adjectives to describe the sheer fun of it all.  I had never seen this musical before and was caught up in the music and the fast-paced dancing.   And pleased to discover that I even knew a couple of the songs, ”Luck Be a Lady,” and “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat.”  The subtitle of the work is “A Musical Fable of Broadway,” and reflecting that, the action is set on Broadway and in a Salvation Army-like mission and features gamblers and show girls and the most unlikely of romantic pairings.  It runs until January 1, so if you’re local, treat yourself!

Christmas Concert

Tucked just in from Sarasota Bay, the Church of the Redeemer in Sarasota’s sanctuary is both elegant and cozy.   This week we attended “This Day, a concert of Christmas-related music by the Musica Sacra Cantorum, part of the church’s Great Music Concert Series which runs from December through next May.  This concert mixed the familiar, “The Holly and the Ivy”, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” and “Joy to the World” (all verses) with the new and the unexpected.  British composer John Rutter is one of my favorites (“All Things Bright and Beautiful”) and we heard his three-movement, “Gloria,” along with works by John Tavener and the hauntingly beautiful, “Shine on This Shining Night,” by Morton Lauridsen.  Much honored and lauded, Lauridsen’s name and work were previously unknown to me.

Bob Parrish, the choir director, is a warm and engaging presence at the podium.  The program was an ambitious one and at some points challenging for the singers.  But overall, an enjoyable paean to the season.

Fresh Fish

For fresh and tasty fish in downtown Sarasota, I highly recommend Duval’s on Main Street.  We’ve had lunch there a number of times, but dinner perhaps only once before.  This week we took our visiting friend Barb and were delighted.  It’s a place where when you walk in, the décor leads you to expect an acceptable casual meal.  In our experience, the food consistently trumps the ambience.

Two of us enjoyed the grilled red snapper with a choice of sides.  I opted for the lightly sautéed spinach (one of my favorite vegetables) and requested the fried green tomatoes.  They were not technically one of the sides, but were being offered in a modified caprese salad.  Also tasty were the corn and lobster mac and cheese and a Caesar salad (large enough to share).  Our waitress was charming and knowledgeable—the next day we spotted her at the Asolo Theater.  Small world.

 

Header photo:  http://www.bradenton.com/entertainment/article115230988.html; Brass:  Christmas-brass.jpg