Category: Books

Loafing in London

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We arrived yesterday morning in London and powered through the day with lots of walking, one nap, and a respectable early bedtime.  Today we increased our step count exploring Knightsbridge (think Harrod’s Food Hall) and spending time in both Hyde Park and Green Park.  The rose garden was mostly over except for one or two last blooms.img_1194 img_1206img_1219

 

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The Latter Days by Judith Freeman
Continuing my reading of memoirs by writers and reporters, I read this one by novelist Judith Freeman. She was brought up in the Mormon faith, but strained against its strictures and rules from an early age. Certainly by her teen years, she was rebelling internally, being given talks by one of the church elders, and subjected to little chats with her mother who admonished her to behave more like her older sister, Marcia.

Somewhat surprisingly, Freeman married a local boy at seventeen, got pregnant very soon thereafter and surrendered any thought of college for herself. Later she and her husband moved from Utah to Minnesota and grew even farther away from the church.

Freeman’s memoir is straightforward and plain as she recounts a childhood starved of warmth and thin on material goods. I found some of the early chapters slow, but appreciated more her later discussion of the turquoise notebook she found from her high school years and how she was eventually able to quench her thirst for learning and channel her desire to become a writer. She has written several novels based on her Mormonism.

All photos copyright JWFarrington

Manhattan Moments: Addicts & Immigrants

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As I’ve walked around the West Village, I’ve been struck by the variety of wrought iron railing and fence designs.  Some examples here plus notes on David Carr’s memoir and the Tenement Museum.

 

RECENT READING
The Night of the Gun by David Carr
At the Aspen Ideas Festival several years ago, I saw Andrew Rossi’s film, Page One, a documentary about the New York Times. Then I experienced seeing and hearing journalist David Carr on a panel following the screening. Mr. Carr was featured prominently in the film and was both articulate and a character. My curiosity piqued, I added his 2008 memoir to my to-be-read list. The book lingered on a wish list until finally I loaded it onto my Kindle and decided its time had come.
Sadly, Mr. Carr collapsed at work in February 2015 and died. His memoir is raw, graphic, sometimes tedious, and ultimately hopeful. A risk taker and addicted to crack cocaine, he, nonetheless, managed to hold down good professional jobs by day while hanging out with some of the less savory elements of society by night. In and out of detox facilities and arrested numerous times, mistreating one girlfriend after another, he was ultimately saved by being needed to care for his twin daughters.

Unlike the standard recovery memoir, this one takes the form of the author going to interview the people he hurt in the past to hear their account of events and how it tallied with his memory. Not an easy book to read, but I felt I learned a lot about David Carr and appreciated even more what he was able to accomplish.

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IMMIGRANT FAMILIES

Thanks to a great recommendation from my friend Patricia, we visited the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in the Bowery. It was a lovely morning and so we walked the mile and a half, passing through less polished neighborhoods and lots of grafittied buildings. The museum purchased 87 Orchard Street, a 5-story tenement built in 1863, in 1989 and soon thereafter began offering tours of selected apartments.

Parts of the building are unrestored to preserve for visitors something closely akin to the residents’ experience. Other apartments have been restored to look like and be furnished like they were when real people lived in them. The building had 22 apartments and a German beer saloon on the ground level and was occupied by residents from the 1860’s until 1935. In that year, new legislation mandated changes to meet stricter building codes that the owner opted not to implement.
We did the “Hard Times” tour led by the very knowledgeable Rachel Wetter which introduced us to two apartments; one inhabited by the German Jewish Gumpertz family in the 1870’s and 80’s, and the other by the Italian Catholic Baldizzi family who resided there from about 1924 until 1935. The apartments were small and early on without electricity, running water or indoor toilets. Mr. Gumpertz was a shoemaker who disappeared one day and never returned to his family. His wife became a dressmaker for a time. Mr. Baldizzi was a carpenter. One day his daughter who spend some of her childhood years in that apartment just showed up at the museum. She subsequently gave the museum artifacts to add to “their” apartment.

There are several other tours offered each day and we plan to return. And next year, new stories of Puerto Rican and Chinese immigrants will be featured.

[All photos copyright JWFarrington]

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Manhattan Musings: Books, etc.

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What’s it like to do citizen science?  How do we stay connected to others as we age? And where were you when the Beatles hit the U.S.?  Books and film notes this week.

Citizen Scientist by Mary Ellen Hannibal

I have just started my science writer friend Mary Ellen Hannibal’s new book, but want to give it a shout-out.  The subtitle is “Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction,” and the book is both reflective and personal.  Equally important, it is chock full of solid history and information on species extinction and how everyday individuals can become involved.

For several years, Mary Ellen was embedded with me and my citizen science colleagues at the California Academy of Sciences.  She sat in on many strategy and planning meetings and spent hours participating in tide pool monitoring and documenting the plants on Mt. Tamalpais.  Her description of being at Pillar Point at low tide as dawn creeps in is magical.  The Academy is not her only context or frame of reference, however;  her linking together of many strands of thought and other research make this what promises to be a very rich reading experience.

Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
This is the first novel I’ve read by Kent Haruf who wrote it quickly when he knew he was dying. All his work is set in the small town of Holt, Colorado. This book is a short, straightforward and poignant account of the universal desire to care for someone special who cares for you. When widowed Addie Moore makes the surprising and unusual request of her single neighbor Louis Waters that he spend the nights at her house in her bed just talking and lying next to each other, she opens herself and him to a delicate relationship. At the same time she jeopardizes her reputation and her relations with her own family.

Haruf’s writing is as replete with the mundane details of small town life as it is tender toward this septuagenarian couple. A novel that will stay with you long after you finish it.

MANIA
If you’re part of my generation you definitely remember the specifics of where you were. I was in high school and it being a Sunday night I was with the youth fellowship group. But it was an unusual Sunday night and all twelve or so of us were crowded into the youth minister’s small living room in front of a black and white TV. When Ed Sullivan announced the Beatles, we girls squealed and jumped up and down. I don’t know what the boys did, but with “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” this was America’s introduction to Beatlemania.

I was reminded of this when the C.P. and I went to see The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, director Ron Howard’s film about the years when the Beatles went on tour. It’s a rollicking, noisy ride filled with screaming fans and crowds the size of which I had forgotten or never known. These lads were a sensation pure and simple and their popularity outstripped that of any previous pop group. And they were true musicians who wrote hundreds of songs, many, many good ones.

Howard gives viewers the context of the 60’s and shows the challenges faced by cities wanting to host them, particularly in the still segregated South. Commentary by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison provides further insight into how closely enmeshed they were with each other while cameos by Whoopie Goldberg and Sigourney Weaver are the cherry on top. At our screening, you could also stay for a 30 minute film of their live appearance at Shea Stadium in New York in 1965.

 

Header photo copyright JWFarrington

Tidy Tidbits: Fall Memories, Reading & Viewing

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BACK TO SCHOOL

It’s September, the first day of fall is upon us, and everyone who’s going back to school is there by now.  I always liked going to school and happily anticipated the end of summer, the cooler days of autumn, and the challenge of new subjects, new teachers, and sometimes even new friends.  And while it’s still summery here in Florida, the official change of season reminds me of some incidents from elementary school.

  • In grade school, going back to school meant the purchase of a new dress, at first just for me and then later for me and my two sisters. These dresses had full skirts, short sleeves, and were almost always plaid.  I recall fondly one green and red plaid with a separate red belt that I thought was particularly smart.
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  • From kindergarten through second grade, I walked several blocks to school. It seemed like a longer walk than I’m sure it was.  One morning I arrived to find the school door tightly locked.  I knocked vigorously several times and then in tears walked back home.  My folks had not realized it was a school holiday.
  • My father’s job called for him to be transferred to another town about an hour away. Before I left for school one morning, my mother told me the name of my new school was “Seward,” and that I should tell that to my teacher.  I don’t know why she didn’t write down the name, but she spelled it for me and said she was sure I could remember it.  All the way along the sidewalk, I went, chanting, “s, e, w, a, r, d, s, e w, a, r d,” until I reached my classroom.  I have no recollection of actually giving Miss Rosa the name nor did I at that point have any idea who William H. Seward was.
  • Even when I went there, Seward School was an old building (constructed in 1911 and long since torn down) with a basement that was dank and dim and a bit scary.  Mr. and Mrs. Steimle, older German immigrants, were the school janitors.  Always cordial to the students, they assisted with any drills.  When we had air raid drills, a regular occurrence in those years, we had to wind our way down the stairs to that dusty basement and kneel along the wall with our heads down.  I don’t think most of us realized what we were preparing for or the potential seriousness if such a drill were for real.  It was just another drill, like a fire drill, only we stayed inside instead of exiting the building.
  • Seward School had classes through 6th grade before we moved on to one of the three high schools in town. Graduation from 6th grade was a big deal—white shirts and ties for the boys and for the girls fancy dresses, and probably stockings.  For many of us, this was the first time we had worn stockings.  In this pre-pantyhose era, that also meant garters to hold them up.
  • Sixth grade is also when I had my first male classroom teacher. Mr. Loretan was a young good-looking, capable teacher—liked by all of us, especially the girls!

READING:  SIBLING SQUABBLES

The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

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I received this book, on the bestseller list for some weeks, as part of my First Editions book club membership.  After aging it for a few months, I brought it out of my stack and read it over several days.  The four Plumb siblings, Leo, Melody, Jack, and Beatrice, are somewhat at war with each other over the money they are due to inherit from a family trust in several months.  The problem is that their mother has given or loaned a significant portion of said “nest” to Leo, who had a car accident while drunk and caused serious injury to his passenger.  Each of the siblings has financial issues of his or her own and has been counting on the money.  They collectively gang up on Leo to make him do the right thing, but aren’t sure he will.

Often novels about dysfunctional families, and this lot qualifies, are downers and downright depressing.  This novel is actually frothy and fun, despite everyone’s problems.  I even found myself liking some of them!  This reflection of Leo’s on life after sobriety captures his personality:

However he parsed it, his future in New York could only be a diluted reflection of his before, a whiter shade of pale.  Evenness defined his present, the by-product, he often thought, of small minds and safe living.  In his new after, there would be no ups and downs, no private jets…or walking home from a riotous evening under a pinkening sky.  It wasn’t luxury he missed, it was surprise.  The things money could buy weren’t the reward; the reward was to feel lifted about everyone else, to get a look at the other side of the fence where the grass was rarely greener but always different and what he loved was the contrast—and the choice.

For some insight into this first-time novelist, check out this brief interview in the LA Times.

VIEWING

Thanks to my friend Mary for recommending the Netflix series, The Time in Between, which I just finished watching.  Set in Morocco, Madrid, and Lisbon between 1937 and 1941, it’s the story of a talented young Spanish dressmaker who ends up being a spy for the British and infiltrating the German community in Spain.  It’s subtitled and the pace, compared to most American productions, is measured—at least until the last few episodes when tension builds and events race to the climax.  Adriana Ugarte as Siri is beautiful and the clothes she creates are gorgeous, part of the fun of watching this series.  The novel of the same name on which it is based was written by Maria Duenas.

Notes:  Header art: www.clipartix.com; plaid dress:  www.etsy.com; Sweeney’s photo from Harper Collins author web page