Category: Mysteries

Manhattan: Art, Food & More

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STUNNING ART EXHIBIT—People Come First

I feel as if I should have heard about the American artist Alice Neel long before this.  She lived from 1900 to 1984 and was active on the political scene in Manhattan.  The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a retrospective of her work on display until August 1, and it’s stunning.  Her paintings are largely people, one or two women or men and some of her children and grandchildren.  

Sam

She was one of the first women to paint male as well as female nudes, and they are not prettified at all, but real and frank in their sexuality.  The exhibit indicates that perhaps she didn’t become as well known in her prime since the art world had turned more toward abstraction and away from representational works.  In addition to the paintings of humans, she did some still lifes, which I also liked. 

Elizabeth in a Red Hat (1984)
Light (1980) painted in Spring Lake, New Jersey

NEW NOVEL—Missing Girls

When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain

Paula McLain is known for her historical novels, particularly the one about Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley.  This novel is a departure as it’s something of a suspense novel about a homicide detective who specializes in locating missing children.  Anna Hart has suffered recent tragedy in her personal life and is hiding away from her family in Mendocino where she grew up.  There she becomes obsessed with a missing teenage girl.  This disappearance is reminiscent of an unsolved case from her childhood and consumes her.  Anna offers her assistance to the local police detective.  They do not know if they will find a body or a girl still alive.  McLain details the acute tension of the search along with Anna’s internal struggles and her identification with certain aspects of the missing girl’s life.  

The arc of the narrative is shallow which means there is much debate and discussion, but not lots of action.  It feels like a very personal story, and to a great extent it is.  McLain herself spent much of her childhood in foster care and is a sexual abuse survivor.  I found the novel engaging, but not gripping, but appreciated why, especially after the author’s endnotes she was compelled to write it.

DINING DELIGHTS

Petite Boucherie

For lunch in the West Village, Petite Boucherie perfectly fit the bill.  Mourning the demise of A.O.C., we tried this little bistro and were delighted.  Excellent merguez sausages, delicious salmon over white beans, a pot of mussels, and delicate greens with warm chevre toast satisfied four discriminating diners.  

Eat Here Now remains the Chief Penguin’s favorite diner on the Upper East Side, and they didn’t disappoint.  He always orders a grilled bacon and cheese sandwich with a side of cole slaw.  I had tuna salad in a pita which was also good.  For a more upscale lunch, but still casual, Three Guys on Madison near Frick Madison is another good bet.  The food is even better, but the vibe is shinier and less atmospheric.

Via Quadronno is well located for a simple lunch before or after visiting Frick Madison.  They don’t take reservations, so we went early and were able to snag a corner table for four inside in the window.  While their specialty is panini and other types of Italian sandwiches, they also serve pasta and salads.  We enjoyed the lasagna Bolognese, the lasagna of the day (spinach), a lovely mixed greens salad with tuna, and asparagus with vinaigrette.  Service was relaxed and unhurried.  We were surprised when we left at the length of the line waiting to be seated.  More outside seating than inside and they don’t take reservations.  

For tasty Lebanese fare, we had dinner at Naya on Second Avenue. The wait staff were all very welcoming, took our temperatures, and asked for contact info. We had grilled halloumi followed by the kafta kebab (nicely spiced ground lamb) served alongside grilled onions and sweet pepper and a mound of rice with vermicelli strands.  We also shared the chicken shish taouk, cubes of grilled chicken with the same veggies and rice.  And we tried their baklava.  Worth a return visit!

With a hankering for some good Indian food, we ventured to Chola on E. 58 St for dinner.  Years ago, we enjoyed their sumptuous lunch buffet.  No buffet this year.   The tables were very widely spaced, and our temperatures checked upon entry.  The menu was so tempting we over ordered to try more dishes and had some to take home.  The chili shrimp in red sauce were very hot and the Chief Penguin was delighted.  Pickled tandoor chicken was appropriately piquant and sharp, while the samosas were a tad disappointing.  I found the ratio of dough to filling to be out of balance.  For an entrée, we sampled the lamb rogan josh with some buttered naan.  A very satisfying meal!

Note: All photos by JWFarrington.

Yellow orchid blooms

Tidy Tidbits: Tropical Blooms & Exotic Settings

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When you can’t travel to new destinations, then it’s best to enjoy what’s local and watch or read about other times, other places. We did some of both this past week.

ORCHID SHOW—LOCAL COLOR

For their 45th annual orchid show, Selby Gardens honors founder Marie Selby and celebrates the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote.  Entitled, Women Breaking the Glasshouse Ceiling, the displays in the conservatory feature purple, white, and gold, the colors most closely associated with the suffrage movement.  The orchids are beautiful as always, and this year, some of the arrangements revolve. There’s even a mobile of orchids and cut-outs.

Gold orchids

 Music from the 1920’s and period furnishings provide an appropriate backdrop. It’s all quite stylish.

The show runs until November 29 and is definitely worth a visit. There’s much more to see besides this exhibit.   For a a video preview, click here.

Creamy white orchids
Everyone must wear a mask!

EXOTIC LOCALES—VIEWING AND READING

The White Countess (Amazon Prime)

With a star-studded cast including Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson as the principals, plus Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave, this is Merchant Ivory’s last film.  It’s set in Shanghai in 1936, and former American diplomat Todd Jackson is a recluse.  Now blind, his life marred by tragedy, he aimlessly whiles away his nights in sleazy clubs.  He’s well off, but a displaced family of Russian emigres lives crowded together in the ghetto.  

Among them is former countess Sofia, who works as a dancer and prostitute to support her young daughter Katya.  Sofia becomes Todd’s muse and inspiration for creating his own elite nightclub.  Watching these lost souls cautiously connect before the Japanese invade is a long drawn out process.  The overall great cast makes this an enjoyable escape from the everyday. Thanks to my friend Mary for recommending it!  

Singapore Sapphire by A. M. Stuart

Set in Singapore in 1910, this is the first in a series of mysteries featuring Harriet Gordon, a young widow and former suffragette, and Inspector Robert Curran.  Harriet is a relatively recent arrival in Singapore.  She volunteers at the English-style boys’ school headed up by her brother and takes on freelance typing jobs.  

When Harriet goes to retrieve her typewriter from a recent client, Sir Oswald Newbold, she finds him dead and his study ransacked. Curran, a former military policeman and cricket star, is assigned with his team to find the killer.  Other suspicious deaths and disappearances follow and Harriet, both curious and restless, gets involved too.  Add into the mix, art and artifacts, ruby mines, and gem dealers and you have an engaging, even exciting, plot.   (~JWFarrington)

Note: Photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

pink hibiscus flowers

Tidy Tidbits: Escaping in Place

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BINGEING ON CRIME

DCI Banks (Amazon Prime)

This detective series is a BBC production from several years ago.  I think it is excellent.  Alan Banks is a middle-aged chief inspector in Yorkshire with a dour demeanor and a sometimes-sour look.  You’d think he’d be hardnosed, but underneath that façade, he is compassionate toward victims and diplomatic when necessary.  Yet, he drives his team forcefully in the hunt for any killer.  His primary colleagues are two women:  DS Annie Cabbot, a smart energetic individual who’s in love with Banks, and DI Helen Morton, a by-the-book precise person dealing with complexities in her own life.  

Banks with Helen Morton & Annie Cabbot (imbd.com)

 Each case is over two episodes.  The cases are complicated with multiple threads which is what makes them engaging.  There are crime scenes, but they are not overly gruesome.   The focus is on identifying suspects, following up links, and arriving at answers as to who killed a person and why.  The TV series is based on author Peter Robinson’s long running book series which now totals twenty-six titles.  Highly recommended!

The Fall (Netflix)

Set in Belfast, The Fall is a crime series about a serial killer and the detective from London who is brought in to oversee an earlier failed murder investigation.  Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson sees linkages between a much earlier murder and more recent ones, but they have no solid leads.  Paul Spector, the serial killer, is smart and ruthless.  He stalks young professional women and then breaks into their homes to do them in.  He leads a double life as a grief counselor and a married father of two young children.  Gibson is a complex character also, a sharp, high-ranking woman in a field dominated by men.  And the setting in Northern Ireland with its political issues adds another layer of tension.

What holds my interest is the police investigative work.  The enactments of the murders are graphic.  At this point, after four episodes of Season 1, I am ready to quit.  The pace is measured, the crime images troubling.  Although it received high praise as a psychological thriller, I don’t really recommend it, unless you are strong-hearted.  For those who are curious, there are three seasons.

CHANGE OF PACE READING

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali

I stumbled upon a reference to this novel online and ordered it.  It is beautiful.   Set in Tehran in 1953 and in the Boston suburbs in 2013, it’s a love story.  But a love story marked by political upheaval, class distinctions, and the passage of time, decades even.  Roya and Bahman meet in a stationery shop in 1953 just before the coup that ousts the Iranian prime minister.  They are seventeen, passionate about one another, and eager to spend their lives together.  

With the political crisis, everything changes and Roya leaves Iran to attend college in California.  She marries Walter and has a mostly satisfactory life.  When she’s 77, an unexpected encounter opens a floodgate of memories and the chance to re-visit part of her past.  

Kamali has a delicate style. She weaves together strands of politics and Persian food and culture into a novel about parental love, familial obligations, and romance. For more information about Kamali’s childhood in Iran and her life in the States, follow the link on her name above.

MY STATIONERY SHOP

Like Roya and Bahman in the novel above, I too sought quietude, but no romance, in my local bookstore.  G. W. Ockenfels was located downtown.  They sold books, but also greeting cards and stationery.  It was a quiet shop, with a wooden floor and aisles with tall shelves as I recall, and the smell of paper and ink.   Mr. and Mrs. Ockenfels who owned and ran it were always welcoming.

I was in my teens, and didn’t have much spending money.  Customers were few and I could browse uninterrupted for long periods.  Over time, I became a regular, known to them by face and then by name. After I had selected and paid for a book, it was always carefully wrapped in pale blue paper and then meticulously tied up with very thin twine. 

In later years, Mr. O. became a bit confused.  He also began dispensing bear hugs that then were uncomfortable, but today might be reportable.  It was a sanctuary for me that became a little less so and then, as often happens in small towns, the Ockenfels went out of business.

Note: Header and book jacket photo ©JWFarrington.

View from Newagen to Hunting Island

Maine Time: Viewing & Reading

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RECENT VIEWING

Soldier Father Son

This New York Times documentary is moving and extremely well crafted.  Brian Eisch is a single parent of Isaac and Joey and a career soldier fighting the war in Afghanistan.  When he sustains a serious leg injury, he returns home to a life very different from the one he had envisioned.  He’s in constant pain, can’t do the activities he’s always done with his sons, and his sense of manhood is diminished by this loss of physicality. Opening in 2010, the film follows Brian in Afghanistan through having part of his leg amputated and all the adjustments recovery requires. The intervening years bring new relationships (Brian’s girlfriend Maria) and unexpected grief, ending in 2019 when Isaac has transitioned from high school student to Army soldier. It presents a slice of life many of us have never experienced and is raw and tender and gritty. Highly recommended!

Endeavour (PBS Masterpiece)
Thursday & Morse

This is Season 7 of Endeavour.  Only three episodes in all, but each one is 90 minutes, and unlike previous seasons, they are all interconnected.  A series of murders on the canal towpath seem to have been successfully solved, but then another one occurs.  Morse has a new woman in his life and a budding friendship with a rich Italian.  He and Detective Thursday have their usual grumbles and disagreements, but this time Morse may have gone too far and caused a permanent rupture.  And we get a warmer, more relaxed side of Superintendent Bright in tender moments with his invalid wife. In each episode, we also have more of the private lives of the principals, adding to the richness of the series.  Recommended!

BEACH READ—SARASOTA SCENE

Footprints in the Sand by Mary Jane Clark (2013)

I believe I got an online offer for this Piper Donovan mystery.  It’s part of a 5-book series of Wedding Cake Mysteries, and not something I’d ever normally purchase.  I was probably lured by a cheap Kindle price and by the Sarasota/Siesta Key setting.

Siesta Key Beach (bestwesternsiestakey.com)

Protagonist Piper Donovan is an actor turned wedding cake baker who gets hired to make these fancy cakes in gorgeous locations.  She and her parents fly to Sarasota for her cousin Kathy’s wedding.  Kathy’s best friend is missing and then found dead. Thus, begins a whole series of murders.  Piper sticks her nose in foolishly and, with telephone advice from her FBI boyfriend Jack, attempts to help solve the mysteries.  

This is what’s called a cozy mystery, murders yes, but little in the way of gore or horror.  It’s light fare.  I enjoyed it as much for the Sarasota locales I know as for the Amish culture and characters Clark weaves in.  The Amish have a strong presence in Sarasota’s Pinecraft neighborhood each winter.   

BLOG HISTORY—STATISTICS

About a month before I retired in Summer 2014, I created Jots & Jaunts and wrote my first blog post.  That year, I produced 15 posts total.  In January 2015, I committed to writing a new post each week.   When traveling, especially internationally (those were the days!), I posted a new entry almost every day, thus creating an online journal for myself and others.  

Besides accounts of faraway places, blog topics include books, movies and TV, and the arts scene, as well as food and favorite restaurants.  The past five months have been challenging with no movies, no concerts or plays, and no restaurant dining—lots more content about reading and viewing.  

To date, I have published 396 posts with this one being #397.  That represents an average of 67 postings each year in the more than five years since 2015.  Besides the web, I share my blog on Facebook and with a select group of friends.  I enjoy and appreciate the feedback I get from my readers.  Thanks for your continued interest!

Maine rocks

Note: Header photo of water off Newagen and rock photo ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).