Author: JWF

Tidy Tidbits: Childhood Memories

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CURRENT READING

Hold Still:  A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann

I am one of those individuals who was offended by Mann’s photos of her children when they first appeared about twenty years ago.  I felt she had exploited them and that the photos were totally inappropriate for public viewing.  Yet, on the recommendation of a very good friend (another avid reader), I decided to try her memoir.  I’ve been dipping into it slowly and am beginning to have more appreciation for her as a person and some greater understanding of the aims of her work.  Close in age to me, she was a wild child, unconventional, very much a rule breaker, and not someone with whom I would have bonded.  That said, her connectedness to her southern roots (Lexington, Virginia) and her strong passion for this particular geography along with her explanations of her craft are keeping me engaged.   So I will continue with her life’s journey.  Reading this goes along with my strong interest in the art of the memoir.

A Master Plan for Rescue by Janis Cooke Newman

I think that creating a child protagonist who is believable and rings true is a difficult assignment for many fiction writers.  Emma Donoghue did it wonderfully in her novel, Room, and Ms. Newman, a San Francisco based-writer and mother of a son, does it here in this recent novel set in New York City in 1942.  At almost 12 years old, Jack is a dreamy, unpopular kid (regularly bullied) who has an active, even overactive, imagination.  He is captivated by the radio (a Silvertone monstrosity) and the dramas its programs bring into his living room.  On the cusp of adolescence, he is extremely close to, almost worshipful, of his father.  It is this relationship and the growing publicity about the war emphasizing the possibility of enemies among us that drive how Jack plays out his grief over a death in the family.

HOUSE KEY

With retirement, the number of essential keys on my key ring has dwindled.  No more keys for work (three or four), no traditional car key, just a front door key and a mailbox key.  This got me to thinking about the role of certain keys as markers of one’s stage in life.  Certainly, the first significant key I acquired was a house key.  My parents planned and built a new house in the 1960’s and it provided more space for our family of six in an attractive neighborhood.  This key enabled me to come and go alone and reflected both a measure of independence from my parents and my sense of ownership of this house.  I returned home here during college and, after I married, my husband and I, and later our son and his family, visited and stayed in this house at holiday time and in the summer. If no one was home, there was another house key hidden for family members to find, but it was comforting and familiar to have my own.

The key is plain and easy to overlook, very thin gray metal made for a simple non-deadbolt lock, a lock that has remained the same for more than 50 years.  I still have that key on my key ring.  My parents are both gone, the house is empty and up for sale, and the key will not be used again.  But still I have it and I will probably keep it.

Along the way, I’ve had other keys—a series of car keys, but not that many as we tended to keep our cars forever (where forever could be as long as 18 years), and car keys now are fobs; office and file cabinet keys; and several other house keys.  But none, I would say, carries the emotional weight of this unprepossessing little key.  It has become a talisman—a pleasant reminder of the transition to adulthood, a last link to a home full of memories of father, mother, sisters and brother, a connection to a past in a small town.

 

Header photo:  Orchids at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarasota (copyright JWFarrington)

Tidy Tidbits: Inside & Out

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BOOK OF THE WEEK

Mary McGrory:  The First Queen of Journalism by John Norris.

Although this is a biography, it is perhaps even more a rollicking review of presidential campaigns and Congressional politics from the McCarthy hearings through the Bush eras, all as viewed from the perspective of columnist Mary McGrory and her colleagues.  Brash, yet elegant, Mary McGrory was a wielder of words and winsome charm.  She contrived to never have to carry her own luggage and was both chummy with and critical of presidential and politician friends from Jack and Bobby Kennedy to Gene McCarthy and Mario Cuomo.  Her column in the Washington Star ran for almost thirty years and when that newspaper folded, she joined the Washington Post, but never found its culture as pleasing as the warm, family-like atmosphere at the Star.  A pioneer in the field, her talent and dedication smoothed the way for other women columnists like today’s Maureen Dowd and Gail Collins.

ART WALK

Having house guests can be an incentive to visit a new place.  With my sister and brother-in-law from North Carolina, we took advantage of the Art Walk at the Ringling College of Art and Design.   This small private school is situated on the northern edge of Sarasota, and its charming campus, tucked just off Tamiami Trail, is a mix of attractive Spanish architecture and more contemporary buildings.  For this event, six of the campus’ galleries were open and free to the public.  Included were a display of pieces from the Basch Collection of art glass, a tour of the letterpress lab, and the opening reception for an exhibition of works by alumnus Amer Kobaslija.  Faculty were also on hand to try to entice us to sign up for their continuing education courses, everything from creative writing to zentangle (a new structured way to create art) to metal working, to publishing interactive books online.  The morning downpour was over, the weather had cleared and walking around this snug campus was a different way to spend the late afternoon.

ON THE SMALL SCREEN

Thanks to the Chief Penguin, my treadmill workouts are now enhanced by watching the Spanish drama, Gran Hotel, available on streaming Netflix.  Called the Spanish “Downton Abbey,” and set in 1906, it is the story of the Alarcon family who own and run an elegant country hotel.  The matriarch, Dona Teresa, rules with an iron will and is not averse to employing chicanery, secrets, and lies to get her way.  Add in her beautiful daughter Alicia, a wayward son (Javier), the unexplained disappearance of one of the maids (Cristina), a waiter (Andres) who is the son of the head housekeeper, and the arrival of a young man (Julio) seeking answers about Cristina’s disappearance, and you have the makings of an entertaining and diverting stew.  Full of murders, mysterious letters, and implausible coincidences, it keeps getting better and better.  There are three seasons and I’m now into season 2 or about halfway through the 30+ episodes.  It is subtitled, but I don’t find that at all a problem, even while striding along on the treadmill!

 

Header Photo: Morning on Manatee Beach (copyright JWFarrington)

Tidy Tidbits: Brain Food

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The season is in full swing and that means lectures, plays, concerts and the like.  This week was packed with activity, all of it stimulating and enjoyable.

SARASOTA INSTITUTE OF LIFELONG LEARNING (SILL)

It’s time for my once a year plug for this marvelous organization.  For 40 years SILL has been presenting notable speakers on global issues and introducing or re-introducing audiences to music performers, creators and producers.  The two series, Music Mondays and Global Affairs, are each given in multiple locations and this past Monday morning, 800 people turned out at Church of the Palms for skilled interviewer June LaBell in conversation with the famous opera baritone, Sherrill Milnes, and his wife, Maria Zouves.  Now retired from performing, Milnes and his wife run a program to coach and nurture rising young singers.  On Wednesday, we joined an equally large crowd to hear Michael Pillsbury, a former defense policy advisor, on intelligence operations between the U.S. and China.  Given that I’m currently watching season 2 of The Americans, I found his stories of failed and successful intelligence efforts and agents especially fascinating.

FILM OF THE WEEK

The Danish Girl.  The opening scenes of Copenhagen’s port area and the rural landscapes are just gorgeous—appropriately lovely cinematography for a film about two artists, Einar and Gerda Wegener.  I think the film could have been more tightly edited, but it is certainly worth seeing and most notable for the stellar performances by its two leads, Eddie Redmayne as Einar, later Lili Elbe, and Alicia Vikander as Gerda.  Set in the 1920’s, it relates the story of a transgendered individual at a time when such a condition was generally unknown and unnamed; you were insane or just plain deluded.  Lili Elbe was a pioneer as this film makes clear, and  it’s an interesting companion piece to a 21st century account, Becoming Nicole, which I commented on in an earlier blog.

AUTHOR TALK

I have not attended that many author talks, but I thought Trompe L’oeil by Nancy Reisman was so beautifully written and such an intricately structured novel that I had to go hear her.  In college I got to hear author John Knowles on stage.  I was very disappointed.  He was shy and retiring in demeanor and so inarticulate I couldn’t imagine how he could have written the much-touted and much discussed, (particularly in high school English classes) novel, A Separate Peace.  I immediately revised my expectation that good writers must be good public speakers.nancyreisman

But Reisman did not disappoint.  Featured at Sarasota 1, our local independent bookstore, she read selected passages from the novel, offered some additional insights into how the work came about and noted that she was interested in the importance of place as well as family dynamics.  Because the work features descriptions of several Renaissance paintings, I asked if she herself painted.  She does not, but her mother is a visual artist and so she grew up surrounded by art.  A professor of creative writing at Vanderbilt, Reisman does most of her writing in the summer.  For devoted fans, like me, that means a longer wait until her next book.

 

 

 

Reisman photo:  www.parnassusbooks.net

Tidy Tidbits: Pastimes

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Happy 2016!  I’ve now been blogging regularly for a year and hope that my readers have enjoyed the journey.  This week is a grab bag of a new diversion, a play, a new restaurant and a book.

COLORING CRAZE

When the Wall St. Journal publishes an article about adults coloring, you know this fad has traction.  Public libraries are offering coloring activities for adults, and coaches and therapists offer coloring workshops as stress relievers.  If you search Amazon for “adult coloring books,” the result is a whopping 11,000+ titles.  Narrowing the search to just “best sellers” in that category nets 673 books. Topics for coloring range from mandalas, butterflies and flowers to cities, undersea creatures, and all sorts of abstract designs.  We’ll see how long this fad lasts; one forecaster said connect-the-dots would be next, but that sounds dull in comparison.

Time for a confession:  I succumbed to this craze.  I like playing with color, yet lack the artistic talent possessed by my sisters—one paints watercolors, the other has taken up sketching from nature—so coloring intricate abstract patterns or flower designs with markers and pens is my thing.  For Christmas, I received three coloring books, all different, along with micro-line pens and fine point colored markers.  The books include Johanna Basford’s Secret Garden (one of the biggest sellers in the U.S. by the artist who was an early proponent of coloring for adults), Color Me Stress-Free (not that I consider myself stressed in retirement!), and Four Seasons:  A Coloring Book.  I’ve only just started adding color to these pages but so far I find it relaxing, addictive and just plain fun!

THEATER

View from the Bridge.  This Arthur Miller play now on in New York was new to me.  I probably should have read it before attending the performance, but since seeing it I have.  The staging is spare, only an enclosed arena-like space with clear benches on three sides and a doorway into the house on the other side, with no scene changes and virtually no props.  The space functions seemingly as both indoor and outdoor space and all the action from the opening scene of two longshoremen showering and getting dressed after work to the final one of everyone piled together takes place here. A lawyer acts as Greek chorus and roams around mostly outside the arena, except when he is actively engaging with longshoreman Eddie inside the square.

The play focuses primarily on Eddie’s all-consuming relationship with his niece Katie, but there are also issues surrounding immigration and the threats presented by “the other” with the arrival of his wife’s cousins from Italy and their aspirations to have a better life as American citizens.  Powerful and moving.  I found that the stripped down set forced me to concentrate on the dialogue.

NYC RESTAURANT FIND

This new place was so good I almost hate to share it. Prompted by Pete Wells’ (NY Times restaurant critic) inclusion of Santina on his list of best new restaurants of the year, I booked for lunch.  Around the corner from the Whitney Museum, it’s an attractive, but packed that day, window-walled space.   I would call the cuisine neo-Italian and the standout dish for us was squash carpaccio.  Layers of thin slices of caramelized delicata and butternut squash were topped with agrodolce and honey, a sprinkle of herbs, and tiny dabs of mascarpone cheese.  Beautiful to look at and a wonderful assemblage of flavors.  Second place goes to the paper thin chickpea pancakes that can be rolled up around your choice of funghi, avocado mash or other options.

BOOK OF THE WEEK

Sous Chef:  24 Hours on the Line by Michael Gibney.  If you’re a foodie and you want to better understand what goes on in the kitchen behind the swinging door, then you’ll be caught up in Gibney’s fast-paced narrative.  Covering an entire day from early morning through the after-closing wind down,  Gibney delivers an energetic account of kitchen procedures, politics, and personalities from Chef (the top dog) down the line to the dishwasher.  Who does what when, how dishes are timed, and how a group of folks with disparate styles must work together as a team to feed you, the diner.  Fascinating!

Header photo: Page from Secret Garden colored by yours truly