Author: JWF

Maine Time: Brunswick Break & More

JWF 1 Comment

EVOCATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY

Emma at the Mirror 2006 (Melissa Ann Pinney)

Earlier this week, we drove down to Brunswick to Bowdoin College. This campus is one out of central casting with its expansive green and soaring church spires. On this day, the green was being readied for the return of students.

Our mission, however, was to visit the latest exhibit at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.  People Watching: Contemporary Photography since 1965 is a wonderful exhibit.  Wide ranging in appeal with 120 works by a variety of photographers, most, but not all, Americans.  The exhibit is divided into sections featuring photos on the street, at home, at work, and self portraits.  Here are a few photos that I particularly liked.

When the Storm Ends I Will Finish My Work 2021 (self portrait by Meryl McMaster)
Woman in Leopard Print 2019 (Quasmi)

SPICY LUNCH

While in Brunswick, we also met my Scarborough cousins for an Indian lunch at Shere Punjab.  We four had enjoyed this restaurant last year so returned for a rematch.  It’s a small place, welcoming, and looks to be family-run.  We began with an order of samosas, and they were excellent, some of the best I’ve had recently.  

Entrees range from chicken, shrimp or lamb curry to chicken tikka and chicken masala, along with several vegetarian dishes. You decide your level of spiciness from 1 to 10.  Three of us increased our level from what we’d ordered before.  I went from a 3 to 4 for my chicken curry (plenty spicy for me), while the Chief Penguin and my cousin had a level 6 on their chicken masala.  Add in some papadums, chutney, wedges of garlic naan, and you have a filling, satisfying meal.  

RECENT VIEWING

Murders in London

London Kills (Acorn)

Vivienne backed by Rob, Billie & David (amcnetworks.com)

The Chief Penguin and I were addicted to London Kills until we had watched it all.  There are 4 seasons and 20 episodes total.  Each episode is 45 minutes, and some nights we watched two of them back-to-back.

Every episode, detectives from the elite murder squad race out to the latest crime scene.  They examine the body, arrive at their initial determination of cause of death and likely weapon, and then decide who will do the “death knock” visit.  None of these cases is straightforward, even if they seem so.  There are always individuals with connections that lead to other crimes and corruption or tangled motives and unlikely accomplices. 

The detectives are Detective Inspector David Bradford (the boss), Detective Sergeant Vivienne Cole, Detective Constable Rob Brady, and trainee DC Billie Fitzgerald.  When the series opens, DI Bradford has just returned from leave.  His wife has been missing for months and the case is still open.  

In a twist that is typical of this series, Amber, the woman who reports the first murder, appears in a later episode with a purse belonging to Bradford’s wife.  Initially, David seems put off by Vivienne’s case comments, but she is sharp and insightful, often with the key observation.  Rob is also a good detective and a decent guy who has a personal friendship with the boss.  Trainee Billie is talented, but her soft approach to suspects occasionally leads her astray.  

They are an appealing team who mostly work together well, and the series is an exciting one.  It is fun to see Sharon Small as Vivienne Cole.  She played the nondescript but smart Barbara Havers in the Inspector Lynley series.  Highly recommended!  I’m keen for a Series 5, yet to be announced.

Note: Most photos by JWFarrington. Header photo is Monday Morning, Mother of Two by Elinor Carucci, 2010.

Maine: Good Times with Granddaughters

JWF Leave a comment

MEMORIES AND TRADITIONS

Colors of summer

After so many years (30+ for the Chief Penguin and me), Maine is a fixed point on our summer calendar and that of our son and family.  This past week, T and J and the girls, E and F, were here for their annual visit.  It’s a time to add to our collective memory bank and to honor our Maine traditions.  

E and F arrived late in the day on Sunday, but in time to brave the cove water for a swim.  E has become a good swimmer and relished being the first one into the water each day.  F takes longer to get in and sometimes needs a bit of coaxing, but she is determined and likes to challenge herself.  Once in, she quickly dunks under and, like her sister, is capable of swimming over to a float.  

Enjoying Maine’s cold water

They were in the water every day despite cool gray skies.  Their last effort was collecting cove water in an empty salsa jar to take home.

The girls and I made blueberry pancakes one morning (they are becoming good pancake flippers), and we re-visited the Boothbay Railway Village, always a treat. Tim made us wonderful spaghetti and clams one night (thanks to Scully’s delicate Damariscotta River clams), and we dined at Cozy’s Dockside twice, ending each meal with ice cream and sprinkles. 

In addition, there were multiple trips to Sherman’s for new books, a round of mini golf at the Dolphin course (their dad came in first, but Grandma was on a roll and acquitted herself well), and finally, a visit to the botanical gardens.  

Bridge at the gardens

The little house and the water pumps are required stops, but the lure of the fairy village is greater with the opportunity (satisfied) to each make a fairy house.  In between all the activities, there were periods of quiet reading and many noisy games of Sorry, most of which I lost! 

 It was a fun week.  As F said, it went too fast, but we created a new cache of Maine memories to see us through until next summer.   

CASUAL FARE 

Cozy’s Dockside

Located on Cozy Harbor’s edge, Cozy’s is perfect for families and anyone in the mood for casual dining.  With picnic tables overlooking the dock as well as attractive inside seating, Cozy’s menu runs the gamut from hot dogs and burgers to a daily chowder, fried haddock, hearty salads, and several sandwiches including, of course, a lobster roll.  The Chief Penguin and I have dined here numerous times this season, and the food is consistently very good.  

On one visit, we sampled the excellent fried calamari appetizer with banana peppers.  We quickly devoured it.  A favorite of ours is the romaine salad which includes a generous handful of capers and thin sheets of Parmesan.  It can be topped with grilled chicken or shrimp grilled, blackened, or fried.  Also popular are the haddock tacos and for our granddaughters the selection of ice cream flavors and toppings.   It’s always a treat to eat here!

Cozy’s tacos

Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)

Maine Memo: Maui, Mystery & Memoir

JWF Leave a comment

BEAUTIFUL MAUI

Menu cover at the yacht club

Like many people, the Chief Penguin and I have fond memories of visiting Maui over the years and being treated to insider tours with good friends.  It is wrenching to see the wildfire destruction of so much of historic Lahaina and its residential neighborhoods. 

On those earlier trips, we enjoyed meandering Front Street, checking out the small shops, and then tucking into a tasty lunch at the fun and funky Lahaina Yacht Club, now completely gone.  

Other club pennants on display in Lahaina

Our hearts and thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones and their homes. (Our friends were fortunate that their property was not affected.)

RECENT READING

A WOMAN WITH AN INTRIGUING PAST

The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear

Author Winspear (Mystery Scene)

This latest novel by Winspear is a standalone one.  I’ve owned it for several months but put off reading it.  Now I wonder why as I found it fascinating, engaging, and occasionally suspenseful.  Elinor DeWitt, also known as Elinor White, was a practically a child during the First World War I when she and her sister were recruited to help the Resistance effort in Belgium.  Their assignments completed, not without danger or continuing mental anguish, they and their mother were taken safely to London, their mother’s early home.  

Elinor completed her education and embarked on a career as a language teacher before being importuned to assist the war effort, this time against the Nazis.  The book goes back and forth in time between the war years, and the present London setting in 1947.  Elinor finds herself drawn to investigate a neighbor family’s business dealings. This leads to re-connections with former colleagues and reflections on her wartime experiences.  

I found Winspear’s more recent Maisie Dobbs’ mysteries a bit tired.  Thus, I was pleased that Elinor White is a complex and intriguing character.  I stayed involved wondering what her fate and that of others would be.  Recommended!  (~JWFarrington)

CREATIVITY OUT OF MISERY

Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel (Published in 2003)

Author Mantel in 2000 (ew.com)

It was an interesting pairing to read Winspear’s novel right after Hilary Mantel’s haunting, graphic, and sharp-edged memoir.  Mantel was born in 1952 in a Britain still suffering the shortages and exigencies of the Second World War.  Much of her childhood was spent in a politically provincial village outside Manchester.  The tensions between Protestants and Catholics reigned supreme, and which you were governed your schools and your daily routine.  Living near multiple sets of older relatives, Hilary received much in the way of family lore and readily accepted that there were ghosts, even recounts personally experiencing sightings.  And to a great extent, she took the teachings and warnings of the family’s Catholicism to heart.

As a teenager, her mother moved her and her siblings to another town along with her live-in partner, Jack.  A life that was already fraught (her father and Jack had both lived with the family before the move) continued to be so in the new setting as Hilary worked to stay under the radar and quiet, if not invisible. Plagued by illness which became severely painful in her late teens, she spent years being misdiagnosed, mistreated, patronized, and ultimately operated on.  

Having lost the ability to have children, she turned to writing.  For anyone who has read Wolf Hall or Bringing Up the Bodies, award-winning novels in Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy, it’s easy to see the seeds of those historical works here in her approach to life.  

This is an unconventional and brilliantly written memoir.  Those novels came much later. Hilary Mantel died in 2022 at the age of 70. Thanks to my friend Margaret for passing this book on to me.  (~JWFarrington)

West coast of Maui, Wailea

Note: Unattributed photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved)

Maine Musings: On Screen & Page

JWF Leave a comment

DUPLICITY IN THE GEM WORLD

Rough Diamonds (Netflix)

Noah & Adina (Times of Israel)

Rough Diamonds is a fascinating and gripping Belgian series set in the Diamond District in Antwerp in the present day.  The Wolfson family, very orthodox Haredi Jews, have a diamond trading business that’s in trouble.  Unbeknownst to Father Ezra, head of the company, the youngest son Yanki has made some questionable deals.  Estranged son Noah who left the family and his religion some years before, returns from London to mourn a death.  

As their father’s health diminishes, Noah, his sister Adina, and his ineffectual older brother Eli, unite to try to save the company midst a web of corruption, violence, and tainted goods.  Meanwhile, prosecutor Jo Smets is investigating the Albanian mafia and stolen jewels.

It is hard at first, maybe even at the end, to interpret all the various strands of the plot.  Why does Noah work for his mother-in-law at all?  Are the bad guys the Albanians or some of the Wolfsons?  Has the prosecutor Smets overreached in her investigative efforts with Eli?  

With these elements swirling around, one of the most compelling aspects of this series is cultural. It’s the interlocking relationships among siblings and cousins, between spouses, and between the Wolfsons and the other Jews in their temple community.   There are 8 episodes, and summaries online indicate there will be a Season 2.  Suspenseful and recommended!

RECENT BOOKS

CRIME IN YORKSHIRE

Many Rivers to Cross by Peter Robinson

British crime writer Peter Robinson penned twenty-eight novels featuring Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks.  The setting is a small town in Yorkshire.  Over the years, I’ve read many of Robinson’s books, and I enjoyed the TV series, DCI Banks. based on several of them.  

Many Rivers to Cross is near the end of the series and the second to feature the intriguing Zelda.  Beautiful, from Moldova, trafficked as a teenager and sexually abused, she shows up in the U.K. as a pavement artist.  Partner to the much older artist Raymond Cabbot, father of DI Annie Cabbot, Zelda and Raymond are friends of Banks.  

The crime that opens the initial investigation is finding a young Arab boy’s body in a rubbish bin.  Trying to identify the boy and how he came to be there leads to drug activity in the area, a second death, and examining the roles of various community members.  The book begins slowly, almost meanderingly, and then picks up speed as links with Albanian mobsters appear, and players from Zelda’s past seem to be involved.  

Part of the attraction of this series is the character of Alan Banks himself.  He loves music of all types from classical to rock, and the reader is regularly treated to comments on what he is listening to.  A fully drawn complex character, he has two grown children and several past amours, one of whom is still a colleague.  He is compassionately thorough in his investigations, a decent man, with a good moral sense. 

In his lifetime, Peter Robinson received many book awards and was noted for his literary bent (he earned a Ph.D. in English from York University).  Sadly, he died late in 2022.  Wanting to know more about him, I found this lovely tribute by his wife, Sheila Halladay.  Be forewarned, there are a few spoilers about his last books.  You can find it at Crime Reads.

ROM-COM FUN

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center

(CultureMap Houston)

For a complete change of pace, I recommend Katherine Center’s new novel, The Bodyguard. Written during the pandemic, It’s fun, humorous, and ultimately sweet, but not icky.  I read in the “Watching” column about a new film on Netflix, Happiness for Beginners, based on one of Center’s books. I haven’t watched the film yet, but that mention led me to this novel. Center grew up in Texas and the ranch she describes belongs to her grandparents.

Hannah Brooks is a highly trained personal protection agent or bodyguard.  Stunned and grieved by the recent death of her mother, she is given a local assignment in Houston, rather than her preference for something far away.  Her client is Jack Stapleton, a well-known movie star back home to spend time with his ill mother.  

Prepared to provide protection, Hannah is initially incredulous when she is required to pose as Jack’s girlfriend in front of his family.  That’s only the beginning of the antics when this skilled agent must try things she’s never encountered like riding a horse and trying to maintain professional distance in a close relationship.  

Hannah and Jack each have some heavy baggage, but how their relationship evolves is both amusing and heartwarming.  The book is written in the first person in Hannah’s voice.  My only quibble is that I found the epilogue a bit overdone in terms of life lessons.  It’s a fast read, perfect for a summer afternoon!

Note: Header image of summer dahlias ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)