Category: Memoirs

Carolina Comments: Park, Drama, & Book

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OUT AND ABOUT:  POCKET PARK IN CARY

Kay Struffolino Park

The Meeting Place

Initially, this parklet on the edge of downtown was named “Meeting Place Park” for the sculpture in its center. Later it was renamed in honor of Kay Struffolino, a long-time Cary resident and active volunteer with the town’s parks and recreation and the cultural arts. 

The Meeting Place is a ceramic sculpture house by Danish artist Nina Hole (1941-2016) commissioned by the town.  Building and firing it involved 36 volunteers and 175 hours over three weeks from mid-October to early November 2012.  

From the town website: Her method of using slabs as modular building blocks enable her to make very larger sculptures which she raku fires in situ wrapping the structure in a blanket of high temperature refractory fabric that acts as the kiln during the firing. She uses a number of assistants and considers the process, including the stimulating communal experience of working with a group of people, as important as the final product. Fired through the night, the spectacular effect of the glowing form as it is unwrapped is the peak moment of the event. 

Kay Struffolino Park

VIEWING: A BROTHEL IN WARTIME

Madame K (Prime Video & PBS)

Mr. Metsla and Mrs. Kukk (rmpbs.org)

In this dramatic series, a group of young women with diverse backgrounds work in an elite brothel run by Mrs. Kukk aka Madame K.  The setting is an elegant villa in Tallinn, Estonia, beginning in October 1939.  Foreign Ministry Counselor, Mr. Metsla, friend and suitor to Mrs. K., is instrumental in moving the brothel to this house.  Their clients include Baltic Germans and then high-ranking Russians.  New girls are added, the war intensifies, dark secrets are revealed, and events at hand take on a deeper, somber tone.  

The 10-part series is in Estonian with subtitles and presents yet another facet and face of WWII. Recommended!

READING:  CARRYING ON AFTER A SUDDEN DEATH

Us, After:  A Memoir of Love and Suicide by Rachel Zimmerman

When Rachel Zimmerman’s 50-year-old husband, without any warning, jumped off a bridge, she was both devastated and worried for her two daughters, ages 8 and 11.  Seth was a noted and driven robotics professor; Zimmerman a seasoned reporter who worked for the Wall St. Journal at one time. 

Trained to be observant, Zimmerman becomes hyper focused on looking for answers to why he did it: contacting experts, raising many questions, and, along the way, excavating the layers of their courtship and their marriage.  Simultaneously, she embraces parenthood and seeks to be both mother and father to her girls.  

In part, the book is an exploration of one’s public persona versus one’s private self, Seth’s especially, but also her own.  A no-holds-barred discussion of their lives, it describes how she and her resilient girls re-surface and re-engage with the world.  It is raw reading at points, but ultimately uplifting as this threesome moves forward. (~JWFarrington)

Note: Header photo is a close-up of the sculpture in Kay Struffolino Park. All unattributed photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)

Carolina Capers: Vicars, Trains & More

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VIEWING: VICARS AND CRIME

Grantchester Season 9 (PBS)

On set, Robson Green (Geordie) & Rishi Nair (Vicar Alphy Kottaram) (pbs.org)

Life in the village of Grantchester rolls on, and Vicar Will Davenport, with some hesitation, accepts a new job offer.  He and Bonnie and their kids will move to Newcastle.  

The Chief Penguin and I watched the entire season of eight episodes, and we think it’s an excellent one. Episodes 1 and 2 do provide murders to solve, but they more significantly focus on Will’s decision to leave and how that is unveiled to Geordie and others in the community.  These episodes present a wonderful depiction of male friendship, both the complex yet deep relationship between Will and Geordie and Will’s strong bond with former curate Leonard.  

From this poignant and moving departure, the series continues with the arrival of new vicar, Alphy Kotteram, whose initial welcome is cool to tepid.  Women’s roles, or more specifically, women’s place in society, come to the fore as evidenced by cantankerous yet devoted Mrs. C. demonstrating her loyalty, Cathy struggling with midlife issues, and Miss Scott in the police department assisting in the murder investigations.  

Grantchester has been renewed for yet another season.  Recommended!

TRAIN RIDE THROUGH THE WOODS

New Hope Valley Railway

This past week, we went on an outing to nearby Bonsal about 20 miles south of Cary.  From Bonsal, you can ride a train on historic track for 4 miles to nearby New Hill.  A locomotive pulls airy passenger cars through leafy woods of pines and deciduous trees.  There is not a lot to see, but the trip is a pleasant meander.  

The most action is at New Hill when the locomotive engine uncouples from the front of the train, runs on a parallel track, and then couples up with what was the back of the train for the return to Bonsal.  The whole trip takes just under an hour.

Engine on the parallel track

An all-volunteer enterprise, the railway goes all out for holidays with flying witches at Halloween and Frosty the Snowman and Santa around or on board in December.  Gina, the brake woman in our car, overflowed with details about the these preparations.

Also on site is a gift shop, of course, a range of antique train cars, and an elaborate G Scale model train layout that is mesmerizing for all ages.  We enjoyed sampling this North Carolina attraction and know that it would appeal to many folks’ grandchildren!

READING—NOT ON MY SUMMER LIST

A Poet’s Memoir

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

(nytimes.com)

I like memoirs and read a good review of this book, so put it on my birthday wish list. Prior to reading it, I had not heard of poet Maggie Smith nor was I aware of her 2016 poem, Good Bones, that went viral after the horrible shooting at the gay nightclub in Orlando.

Other memoirs have dealt with marriage break-ups and the challenges of parenting as one and not two.  What Smith does in You Could Make This Place Beautiful is unique; her memoir is made up of snippets of life, questions one could pose, and a play within the memoir.  

The reader gets raw, painful episodes of hurt and anger along with accounts of the joys she shares with her young daughter and son.  She discovered her husband’s infidelity on a postcard; she dubs herself the Finder in her drama scenes and he The Addressee.  Throughout her musings are some sections that recur like “A Note on Plot”, or “A Friend Says Every Book Begins with an Unanswerable Question” where one time the text reads: “Then what is mine? how to forgive or “how to remain myself.”

Smith reiterates that this is not a tell-all book, but rather a “tell-mine.”  She omits certain scenes and specifics yet delves into her early life, their courtship, and their marriage.  Ultimately, she believes her view of her professional life and his view of it, her work vs. his work, colored their relationship, and ignited its fracturing.  

None of this is written in a linear way as she reflects, revisits issues, revises her thinking, consults and quotes other writers, and shares her experiences with her therapists. At one point, she states that she had hoped to have more levity on the page to offset the sadness and hurt.  She studies and revises her view of herself again and again as she works to become, I would phrase it, a more fully integrated person.  

There is an immediacy here; some issues, such as finalizing the divorce drag on in litigation as she writes.  Her children also take turns on take center stage as she ponders their futures, mourning the fact that their father moved out of state, limiting their access to him. The depth of her love for these two resilient kids is clear.  

There is pain on the page and yet, there is a magnetic quality about the writing (her poet’s eye for precision, e.g.) that kept me glued to the text.  Highly recommended!  (~JWFarrington)

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

Tidy Tidbits: Winter Pastimes

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MOVIES—MEN AT WORK, PHYSICS & MUSIC

Oppenheimer ($5.99 on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, et al)

Einstein & Oppenheimer (Digital Spy)

Oppenheimer, one of the big films of 2023, is an almost mesmerizing portrayal of one individual’s huge impact on history.  Physicist Oppenheimer was a complex man and an intriguing one.  Brilliance, coupled with ego and drive, propelled him in overseeing the development of the atomic bomb.  This invention led directly to the end of World War II and, initially, accolades for Oppenheimer.  To what extent, Oppenheimer carefully considered the level of destruction use of the bomb would wreak is a question one can debate.  

Several years after the war, he was accused of being a Communist and a security threat. Based on the biography, American Prometheus,the film is multi-layered and nuanced in its depiction of Oppenheimer and those involved in the Manhattan Project.  And the special effects are stunning.  Highly recommended!

American Symphony (Netflix)

Suleika & Jon (Variety)

Until I read reviews of American Symphony, I had not heard of Jon Batiste.  He’s a composer, pianist, pop performer, and winner of numerous awards.  In this film, produced jointly with Higher Ground Productions (the Obamas’ company), the viewer experiences the creation of the musical piece of the title. Simultaneously, it follows the travails of Batiste’s wife Suleika Jaouad as she copes with a recurrence of leukemia.  Batiste is a dedicated and hard-working composer, but he is also tender and supportive of Suleika.  

I enjoyed parts of Jon’s creative process and admired her for her bravery and her willingness to share the raw as well as the joyful moments of her treatment.  Overall, I’d give the film a mixed review.  I thought it was unnecessarily long and would have edited out some of the composition scenes.  

As a side note, Suleika’s memoir Between Two Kingdoms about her earlier cancer journey was published in 2021.   I read it when it was released and included it in a blog post in Sept. 2021.

READING—GRIEF & LOVE

Lost and Found: A Memoir by Kathryn Schulz

Memoirs are one of my preferred genres, so I approached Lost and Found expectantly.  It is both emotional and scholarly in tone.  Schulz focuses on grief and love.  Besides detailing how and why we lose or misplace objects and citing a range of research articles about loss, she delves into her grief over her father’s death and describes his long physical and mental decline.  Anyone who has lost a parent or other loved one can relate to this section.  

Her other main topic is love and how one goes about finding one’s true love or life partner: what makes two people click and how does one arrange to have the right circumstances at hand for this to happen.  Schulz had a long search, sometimes fraught with self-doubt, before meeting her right person and then settling down together.

I confess to skimming some; I was more interested in her personal experiences than I was in the scientific explanations for loss and love.  My response may be colored by being older than the author with several decades more life experience.  Overall, I give it a qualified recommendation.  

LOCAL CULTURE—GREAT MUSIC

The Sarasota Orchestra was in fine form on Friday night for their first concert of the season at Neel Performing Arts Center in Bradenton.  Their playing was spirited with all sections performing strongly.  This concert, under the baton of guest conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya, included a recent work by composer Clarice Assad, an impressive rendition of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by pianist Stephen Hough, and Elgar’s Enigma Variations.  All fourteen of them, each variation clearly delineated one from the other.  It was truly a great night for our local musicians.  Bravo!

Note: Header photo is of ducks over a pond in California in Jan. 2014 ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)

Maine Memo: Maui, Mystery & Memoir

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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)