Author: JWF

At Sea: Cruising in the Maritimes

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ON THE SHIP

The Chief Penguin and I are taking our first extensive cruise, something we’ve not done before, and are now in Nova Scotia. We had time in port in New York (more than we personally needed) and then a full day at sea.

The day at sea was a bit challenging for me as we had some swells, a remnant of Hurricane Matthew, which made for some prolonged rocking. Other than meals and attending an excellent lecture on Halifax and the Titanic and watching a magician perform card tricks and engage the small audience with puzzles, I spent the day lying low. Reading and even taking a nap.

Being first in port for a day and a half and then at sea for an entire day, I felt a bit encapsulated. However, the ship is lovely and abounds with venues and opportunities to eat and drink. You are never far from a friendly staff member who stops by to ask what you’d like to drink. Add to that an ice cream stand, a bistro for burgers and grilled cheese, afternoon tea with scones and mini sandwiches, a coffee bar that also serves pastry and several sumptuous buffets—and you’ll quickly see that your scale will be hard pressed to maintain the status quo! This in addition to the main dining room where you could order breakfast, lunch and dinner.

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Our day in Halifax dawned clear and bright with a blue blue sky and a pleasant 59 degrees. The boardwalk along the harbor is attractive and inviting even now when the season is obviously over. We toured the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and were impressed with both the Titanic exhibit and the one on the 1917 horrific collision of two ships in the Halifax harbor resulting in one of the worst explosions in human history. There was also a smaller exhibit on the aborted Franklin expedition to the Arctic in the 1850’s.
Continuing our walk, we climbed the steep hill up Prince Street to the old clock tower, a very handsome wood frame building, and to the Citadel. Panoramic view of the city skyline and the harbor. Then onward to stroll in the public gardens and just beyond the historic Camp Hill cemetery.
Returning down the hill, we lunched at a tasty fish restaurant, McKelvies, and then made a brief stop in the sanctuary of St. Paul’s Anglican Church, built in 1749 and the oldest building in Halifax. It survived the 1917 explosion and you can see a shard of metal from that event which still pierces the wall in the entryway. Architecture in the city is a mix of historic buildings and lots of new construction. I was also struck by the sight of brightly colored Adirondack chairs and picnic tables scattered around several public plazas.

Manhattan Moments: Addicts & Immigrants

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As I’ve walked around the West Village, I’ve been struck by the variety of wrought iron railing and fence designs.  Some examples here plus notes on David Carr’s memoir and the Tenement Museum.

 

RECENT READING
The Night of the Gun by David Carr
At the Aspen Ideas Festival several years ago, I saw Andrew Rossi’s film, Page One, a documentary about the New York Times. Then I experienced seeing and hearing journalist David Carr on a panel following the screening. Mr. Carr was featured prominently in the film and was both articulate and a character. My curiosity piqued, I added his 2008 memoir to my to-be-read list. The book lingered on a wish list until finally I loaded it onto my Kindle and decided its time had come.
Sadly, Mr. Carr collapsed at work in February 2015 and died. His memoir is raw, graphic, sometimes tedious, and ultimately hopeful. A risk taker and addicted to crack cocaine, he, nonetheless, managed to hold down good professional jobs by day while hanging out with some of the less savory elements of society by night. In and out of detox facilities and arrested numerous times, mistreating one girlfriend after another, he was ultimately saved by being needed to care for his twin daughters.

Unlike the standard recovery memoir, this one takes the form of the author going to interview the people he hurt in the past to hear their account of events and how it tallied with his memory. Not an easy book to read, but I felt I learned a lot about David Carr and appreciated even more what he was able to accomplish.

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IMMIGRANT FAMILIES

Thanks to a great recommendation from my friend Patricia, we visited the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in the Bowery. It was a lovely morning and so we walked the mile and a half, passing through less polished neighborhoods and lots of grafittied buildings. The museum purchased 87 Orchard Street, a 5-story tenement built in 1863, in 1989 and soon thereafter began offering tours of selected apartments.

Parts of the building are unrestored to preserve for visitors something closely akin to the residents’ experience. Other apartments have been restored to look like and be furnished like they were when real people lived in them. The building had 22 apartments and a German beer saloon on the ground level and was occupied by residents from the 1860’s until 1935. In that year, new legislation mandated changes to meet stricter building codes that the owner opted not to implement.
We did the “Hard Times” tour led by the very knowledgeable Rachel Wetter which introduced us to two apartments; one inhabited by the German Jewish Gumpertz family in the 1870’s and 80’s, and the other by the Italian Catholic Baldizzi family who resided there from about 1924 until 1935. The apartments were small and early on without electricity, running water or indoor toilets. Mr. Gumpertz was a shoemaker who disappeared one day and never returned to his family. His wife became a dressmaker for a time. Mr. Baldizzi was a carpenter. One day his daughter who spend some of her childhood years in that apartment just showed up at the museum. She subsequently gave the museum artifacts to add to “their” apartment.

There are several other tours offered each day and we plan to return. And next year, new stories of Puerto Rican and Chinese immigrants will be featured.

[All photos copyright JWFarrington]

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Manhattan Musings: Movies & Museums

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A week seeing Equity and Deepwater Horizon and visits to two museums. The abstract art by centenarian Carmen Herrera is bold, colorful and arresting.

FILM
Equity
Written, produced and directed by women, Equity, is a fascinating film about women on Wall Street and bringing an IPO to the trading floor. Starring are Anna Gunn as the seasoned older managing director, skilled, but tainted by a more recent failure, and Sarah Megan Thomas, as her up and coming vp who is better equipped to handle the Facebook-like founder of privacy company Cachet. Portrayed here are women with power and women admitting they like money along side the chicanery, manipulation, and cheating that is part of this financial milieu.  And unlike traditional films where good prevails and the bad guys get it, the ending may surprise you. Both the Chief Penguin and I liked this film and would recommend it. Later we learned that Sarah Thomas was one of our son’s high school classmates. For the record, she is very good.

Deepwater Horizon
While any reasonably aware person knows about the oil rig disaster that was the Deepwater Horizon in 2010, few of us can appreciate how horrific an event it was. If for no other reason than seeing the catastrophe develop and play out, this film is worth seeing. It is amazing to me that more men didn’t die. By choosing to focus on a couple of key players, the technician Mike Williams; Andrea, an operator in the control room and the only woman; and Jimmy Harrell, who is in charge and essentially “the captain” of the rig; the creators provide a strong emotional link for the viewer. Two BP execs are also on board; needless to say, they and the company do not come off well. Scenes of the engulfing fireball may haunt you, but I still recommend it.

ABSTRACT ART
The Whitney Museum of American Art is close by, and, as members, we can go as often as we like. Last week we explored the Carmen Herrera exhibit, “Lines of Sight.”  At 101, Ms. Herrera is still actively creating art and now getting some long overdue recognition. A Cuban immigrant and female, she was mostly overlooked during the 1950’s, 60’s and beyond until fairly recently. Her colorful geometric canvases make me think somewhat of Rothko and Jasper Johns. They are bold and bright and stunning in their simplicity. Here are a few samples.

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SPIRITUALISM
We also stopped into MOMA briefly, mostly to enjoy lunch in their café, but did spend a few minutes wandering in an exhibit of books, posters, clippings and other items relating to Fulton Oursler and the spiritualism movement.img_0666

Spiritualism attracted the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote a book about the existence of fairies (based on some photos taken by two cousins which they decades later admitted were bogus), and even those who debunked it such as master magician Houdini.

 

 

 

 

 

Note:  All photos by JWFarrington

Manhattan Musings: Books, etc.

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What’s it like to do citizen science?  How do we stay connected to others as we age? And where were you when the Beatles hit the U.S.?  Books and film notes this week.

Citizen Scientist by Mary Ellen Hannibal

I have just started my science writer friend Mary Ellen Hannibal’s new book, but want to give it a shout-out.  The subtitle is “Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction,” and the book is both reflective and personal.  Equally important, it is chock full of solid history and information on species extinction and how everyday individuals can become involved.

For several years, Mary Ellen was embedded with me and my citizen science colleagues at the California Academy of Sciences.  She sat in on many strategy and planning meetings and spent hours participating in tide pool monitoring and documenting the plants on Mt. Tamalpais.  Her description of being at Pillar Point at low tide as dawn creeps in is magical.  The Academy is not her only context or frame of reference, however;  her linking together of many strands of thought and other research make this what promises to be a very rich reading experience.

Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
This is the first novel I’ve read by Kent Haruf who wrote it quickly when he knew he was dying. All his work is set in the small town of Holt, Colorado. This book is a short, straightforward and poignant account of the universal desire to care for someone special who cares for you. When widowed Addie Moore makes the surprising and unusual request of her single neighbor Louis Waters that he spend the nights at her house in her bed just talking and lying next to each other, she opens herself and him to a delicate relationship. At the same time she jeopardizes her reputation and her relations with her own family.

Haruf’s writing is as replete with the mundane details of small town life as it is tender toward this septuagenarian couple. A novel that will stay with you long after you finish it.

MANIA
If you’re part of my generation you definitely remember the specifics of where you were. I was in high school and it being a Sunday night I was with the youth fellowship group. But it was an unusual Sunday night and all twelve or so of us were crowded into the youth minister’s small living room in front of a black and white TV. When Ed Sullivan announced the Beatles, we girls squealed and jumped up and down. I don’t know what the boys did, but with “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” this was America’s introduction to Beatlemania.

I was reminded of this when the C.P. and I went to see The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, director Ron Howard’s film about the years when the Beatles went on tour. It’s a rollicking, noisy ride filled with screaming fans and crowds the size of which I had forgotten or never known. These lads were a sensation pure and simple and their popularity outstripped that of any previous pop group. And they were true musicians who wrote hundreds of songs, many, many good ones.

Howard gives viewers the context of the 60’s and shows the challenges faced by cities wanting to host them, particularly in the still segregated South. Commentary by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison provides further insight into how closely enmeshed they were with each other while cameos by Whoopie Goldberg and Sigourney Weaver are the cherry on top. At our screening, you could also stay for a 30 minute film of their live appearance at Shea Stadium in New York in 1965.

 

Header photo copyright JWFarrington