Category: Books

Manhattan: Mostly Movies

JWF Leave a comment

Besides spending time with our son and family in this Christmas season, we took in several films and also an exhibit of works by women at the Grolier Club. And, as always, we ate well! Vinegar chicken and an assortment of tasty veggies on Christmas plus good Italian fare at favorite new and old restaurants.

ON SCREEN

Two Popes (Theaters & Netflix)

This is an engaging and witty film.  It’s the fascinating fictional account of a meeting between Pope Benedict and then Cardinal Borgoglio who became Pope Francis.  The cardinal has gone to Rome to submit his resignation to the pope, only the pope refuses to accept it.  The two men are diametrically opposite in both their views and their approach to the pomp of the office; Pope Benedict revels in it while Pope Francis eschews the red shoes and other trappings.  Anthony Hopkins portrays a wry and solitary pope while the cardinal has deep regrets about some actions in his youth that he feels preclude him from ever becoming the pontiff.  While these men did have a meeting in real life, it came later, but with this film, I felt I learned more about Pope Francis’ early career.  

A Hidden Life

I don’t know if I’ve seen other Terrence Malick films, but this one is both beautiful and moving.  I became immersed in the life and fate of Franz Jagerstatter, a real Austrian farmer, who when conscripted into the army, refuses to swear loyalty to Hitler.  A devoutly religious man with a strong moral sense, he risks his life and his family (his wife Fani must manage the farm and their two young daughters with minimal help) for his beliefs.  But, will his sacrifice make any difference in the larger sense?  Scenes of green pastures and mountains alternate with the torture of prison in this three-hour film. The dialogue is mostly English with some untranslated German.  Worth seeing.

Little Women

This “Little Women” is wonderful!  Like many, I’ve read the novel multiple times, seen movie versions, and know the story well.  This is an exuberant version punctuated by sadness, the heartaches of young love, and the toll of grinding poverty.  But these girls, Meg, Amy, Beth, and particularly Jo, romp and bicker and love each other.  They have talents and minds as well as hearts.  I recall Marmee in the book as seeming too goodie-goodie, but here she is a giving neighbor and also a woman occasionally frustrated and angered by life’s lacks.  

The cast is all-star including Saoirse Ronan as Jo, Meryl Streep as cranky, rich Aunt March, Laura Dern as Marmee, and the handsome winning Timothee Chalamet as the irrepressible Laurie Lawrence.  Even Sydney from Grantchester, James Norton, shows up as Meg’s suitor.  My only quibble is that if you don’t know the story, the back and forth jumps in time can be a bit confusing.  But, overall it’s simply marvelous!!

ON PAPER

Five Hundred Years of Women’s Work (Grolier Club)

Although it’s a private club devoted to books and printing, the Grolier Club opens its occasional exhibits to the public at no charge. This current exhibit of works by women is a rich sampling from the Baskin Collection: women as authors, printers, publishers, and bookbinders from the 15th century onward.  The Lisa Unger Baskin Collection is housed at Duke University and these items on display here until early February.  

Many of the works relate to the suffrage movement both in the UK and the United States, as well as to the fight for women’s reproductive rights (contraception, abortion, etc.).  There is correspondence by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as well as between several generations of Pankhursts, a letter by Charlotte Bronte, and works by an early Dutch artist and scientist.  Also treatises on the treatment of African Americans.  One final case highlights lovely examples of elaborate bookbinding.  

Ms. Baskin began collecting rare works by and about women with her late husband, but after his death continued to collect and until 2015, the 11,000 item collection remained in her hands. 

DINING—MORE ITALIAN

It seems that Manhattan has more Italian restaurants than any other cuisine, at least on the Upper East Side!  We tried another one the other night and will add it to our list for a return visit.  Bella Blu is a long narrow space with a bar on the right and walls splashed with bright colors.  Add to that lavish Christmas wreaths and bells and you have sensory overload.  We dined early, but already two-thirds of the tables were occupied in this family friendly place.  

The tasty frisée salad with walnuts and Gorgonzola was big enough to share while the ravioli with guanciale were superb.  We also sampled the fritto misto and the penne with cubes of fresh tuna in a tomato, black olive and oregano sauce.  They also have pizzas and many other pasta and meat entrees that will lure us back.  Service was efficient to brisk, but it is the holiday season and everyone wants to dine out!

Text and photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Tidy Tidbits: Culture Notes

JWF Leave a comment

ON STAGE

The Sound of Music

You’ve probably seen at least one stage production of The Sound of Music or the movie starring Julie Andrews, but did you pay attention to the year and the context?  I don’t think I did until we saw the superb performance at the Asolo Theater.  This is a darker, more nuanced play and one that brings to the fore the rising Nazi presence in Austria in 1938.  The actors are great, especially Captain Von Trapp’s seven rambunctious children, the Mother Superior with a big voice that commands attention, and the always in motion, all arms and legs Maria.  Equally effective is the staging, particularly the last scene when the entire family performs in a competition.  If you live nearby, go see it!

ON THE PAGE

The Long Call by Ann Cleeves

Fans of Shetland and Vera, TV mystery series seen on PBS, will recognize Cleeves’ name as the author of the works upon which they are based.  I’ve not read any of these mystery novels, but decided to try the first work in a new series.  The Long Call introduces Matthew Venn, a gay detective married to the manager of a community arts center.  When a troubled man is found dead on the beach and a disabled young woman goes missing, all the leading suspects have ties to the arts center.  

What drew Simon Walden, the dead man, to Barnstaple, and how was he connected to the mentally challenged teenage girl he regularly sat next to on the local bus?  Venn is a complex and fascinating character who grew up in the Brethren faith, but later rejected it.  In working to solve this case, he must re-visit individuals from his past.  I found this mystery intriguing enough to read to the finish and will probably look for the next one in the series.  

ON THE SMALL SCREEN

Unbelievable (Netflix)

On the subject of crime, I’m currently watching Unbelievable, a graphic account of the investigation into a series of rapes that occurred mostly in Colorado.  Based on real events, it’s about two female detectives from different cities who come together to find a serial rapist.  Several victims are portrayed including Marie, a troubled young woman, who under persistent questioning from two male detectives recants her initial account of the rape.  Difficult and disturbing to watch, it is, nonetheless, a painstaking exploration of how rape crimes are handled or mishandled.

ON THE WAY HOME

Appleton Museum of Art

On our way back south from St. Augustine last week, we stopped in the town of Ocala and paid a visit to the Appleton Museum of Art. This small gem of a museum has a voluminous collection of Christmas decorations and figurines which they bring out each December. But, what was of most interest to several of us, was their featured exhibit of paintings from the Reading Public Museum in Pennsylvania. Entitled Across the Atlantic: American Impressionism through the French Lens, it showcases 65 paintings of early French Impressionistic work along with pieces done by American artists several decades later. It is a lovely exhibit and one worth lingering over. The museum also has European and Asian pieces in their permanent collection.

It was almost noon when we finished our tour. We drove into the center of town, admired Ocala’s town square with its brightly decorated Christmas tree, and then had a most satisfying lunch at Harry’s Seafood Bar & Grille. From the standard chicken Caesar salad to New Orleans style shrimp creole and the like, there is something for every taste. Service was lightning quick!

Note: Text and photos ©JWFarrington.

Tidy Tidbits: Page & Screen

JWF Leave a comment

RECENT READING

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Crawdad (dailyherald.com)

From the online comments I’ve read over the past six months, people either loved or hated this novel.  I put off reading it until now, mostly because my local book group was going to discuss it and I wanted it to be fresh in my mind.  I’m in the positive camp.  I loved this novel!  That is not to say that I found it completely convincing, but I did find it compelling.

Kya is just seven when her older siblings leave home and then her father does not return after being gone for several weeks.  Her mother left them some time before so Kya goes to live in a shack in the nearby marsh.  Hiding out from the school authorities, she survives isolated and alone until she reaches adolescence.  In Tate, a teenager a few years older than she, she has her first friend and advocate who even teaches her to read.  Tate goes off to college, abandons her for awhile, and another local young man, Chase Andrews, is attracted to her beauty and her strange wildness.  When Andrews is found dead and foul play is suspected, the police’s first thought is of Kya, referred to by the townspeople as Marsh Girl.  The intertwined strands of Kya’s childhood and coming-of-age and the murder investigation play out against each other, in chapters shifting back and forth in time.  

A zoologist who spent many years studying wildlife in Africa, Owens would seem to be an unlikely novelist.  Yet, she writes in a lyrical manner and her descriptions of the marsh and the nature around it are almost poetic.  Despite the dire events, there is much joy in this novel, and even an ending that seems, if not contrived, perhaps too neat.  What might almost term this story a fairy tale.  But a very absorbing and captivating one!

Our book group had a very lively discussion with almost everyone having enjoyed the book. There were doubters as to whether Kya could really have survived alone and also if it was credible that she became such a successful author of nature guides. And several found the courtroom scenes hurried and almost as if one were reading a different novel entirely. For many of us, the twist at the end was a big surprise, but I think it’s fair to say that folks would recommend this novel to others. (~JWFarrington)

BIG SCREEN

Harriet

Harriet Tubman was one extraordinary woman. A slave who walked a hundred miles from Maryland to Pennsylvania to gain her freedom, leaving her husband, siblings and parents behind, she became one of the greatest conductors on the Underground Railroad. This film recounts her journey to freedom, her trip home to bring her husband north, and the countless trips she made to lead slaves from Maryland eventually to the Canadian border. It is a story of grit, determination, leadership, and the willingness to bear undue hardship.

The Chief Penguin and I visited her home in Auburn, N. Y. and its associated museum several years ago. Auburn is the town I grew up in and you didn’t live here without knowing about Tubman or about William Henry Seward, secretary of state and another Auburn resident, who sold her the land for her house. If you should get to the Finger Lakes region, in what is really upstate N.Y., the house and museum are worth a visit. In the meantime, see the film and learn more about this remarkable woman. She deserves to be honored on our twenty dollar bill!

SMALL SCREEN

The Crown (Netflix)

Olivia Colman & Tobias Menzies (time.com)

The Crown is back with Season 3, and it’s excellent! We have just watched the first three episodes and are totally engaged. Olivia Colman as Elizabeth is superb and Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip is excellent. The tone of this season so far seems more somber than Season 2, and the producers have made use of more archival footage of events. In episode 2, Helena Bonham Carter plays an exuberant, sometimes out-of-control Princess Margaret. I felt this episode conveyed very well her frustration at being number two, while also documenting the real, but often buried, affection between the two sisters.

Poldark (PBS)

Demelza and Ross (express.com)

The final season of Poldark and the final episode have aired and we will have to survive our Sunday nights without the brooding handsomeness of Aidan Turner (Poldark), the dogged patience and determination of Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson), and their nemesis, George Warleggan, crazed yet perhaps in the end more human than we expected. It was a memorable last season with plenty of action along with tying up loose ends for Dwight and Caroline and Drake and Morwenna. I will miss these characters! The reassuring thing is that I can always go back and re-watch the series on PBS Passport.

Note: Text ©JWFarrington. Header photo of Harriet Tubman courtesy of history.com

Tidy Tidbits: Cheese & More

JWF Leave a comment

PROVISIONING—Cheese and More

I grew up eating good cheese, not expensive cheese, but good New York State sharp cheddar.  In our household, there was no such thing as American cheese, a misnomer if there ever was one.  In that era in upstate New York, Black Diamond cheddar from Canada was the height of sophistication and an occasional rectangular log of it was a treat. Others in our extended family loved cheese also.  Our Midwest cousins always arrived bearing Hickory Farms’ Lebanon bologna and a hunk of nutty Ohio Swiss.  Yum! As an adult as my horizons broadened beyond the Finger Lakes, I was introduced to other cheeses; everywhere the Chief Penguin and I traveled we sampled cheese, from Gorgonzola in Italy, to Emmental in Zurich, Manchego in Spain and, of course, Roquefort in France.

Today the Chief Penguin and I delight in all the cheeses and comestibles on offer at Artisan Cheese Company in Sarasota.  Owner Louise Converse (aka Cheese Louise) has a carefully cultivated and curated cheese case with a wide variety of cow, goat and sheep cheeses from small producers across the U.S. and abroad.  My favorites in their case include a clothbound cheddar from England, a just ripe Camembert, caramelly aged Beemster Gouda, Bayley Hazen Blue from Vermont, and the store’s own pimento cheese.  

Recently, Louise managed, through good connections, to snag some Rogue River Blue.  This cheese made in Oregon beat out more than 3,000 other cheeses and was named the best cheese on the planet in the World Cheese Awards!  We bought a piece and it is delectable and simply seductive.  Creamy, not overly salty, it begs you to keep eating more.  

But Artisan Cheese offers more than just cheese.  There are distinctive crackers, very good scones, wines that are both thoughtfully chosen and moderately priced, along with prepared foods.  Not up for cooking dinner?  Try their mac and cheese, tomato pie, or one of their several soups.  The store supports an apprentice program for young women in partnership with Girls Inc.; many of these food delights are their products.  Along with all the cheeses and other treats, Louise has added tea towels as well as a selection of china and bamboo plates and mugs.  These are distinctive wares that are not run of the mill.  I have to admit I surrendered to temptation and bought several of these items—of course, for gifts!

RECENT READING:  A Sensitive Novel

Upstate by James Wood

An Englishman by birth, Wood is the fiction critic for The New Yorker and also a Harvard professor and novelist.  I’d not read any of his earlier novels, but was attracted to this one by both the title and the setting in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., a town I frequented regularly some years ago.  It’s a short novel with short chapters and is both delicate and exquisite.  

Alan Querry is English and a widower who lives there with his partner, Candace.  He has two grown daughters.  Helen, who is married with children, often travels to Manhattan for her work in the music industry.   Daughter Vanessa is a philosophy professor at Skidmore with a younger boyfriend named Josh.  She has suffered from mental issues in the past and Alan and Helen have been summoned by Josh to Saratoga to check up on her.  

I love Woods’ prose; each word in a sentence is carefully chosen whether it’s in a phrase describing the weather: “it was coming down fast, in the passive-aggressive way of snow, stealthy but relentless, insisting on its own white agenda, the soft monotony canceling all time, all resistance, all activity.” And, “white lengths of snow, like fluorescent stripes, were caught in the folds of their nylon coats.” 

Or an evocation of someone’s thoughts, Alan’s here, as in: 

 “He watched his two highly intelligent, grown-up daughters, as they approached and drew back from each other, like switched magnets. Helen, apparently more confident, acute, with her slightly sharp teeth, elegantly handsome, but also being disagreeable somehow, as if she were necessary medicine Vanessa just had to take; Vanessa, quieter, softer, with her long dark hair and slightly squinting eyes, but exact, precise in her every word and thought, and so, to him at least, quite as formidable as her more obviously intimidating sister.  How had he and Cathy produced them?”

This is a novel of a family ruptured by divorce, of sisters living at a distance who care while simultaneously annoying and needling each another, and of a father with a failing business who isn’t sure how best to help his older daughter nor initially certain if he desires to engage completely.  Each of the principal characters reflects on his or her individual life:  what does it take to be happy; how important is success versus family; what does an entire life amount to in the end?  It’s a beautiful novel, wise and moving!  (~JWFarrington)

Notes: Book cover courtesy of Goodreads.com; header photo from medical news.com. All other contents ©JWFarrington.