Tag: All Creatures Great and Small (TV)

Tidy Tidbits: Feeding the Mind

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LIFELONG LEARNING ONLINE

This season we again subscribed to the two Sarasota Institute of Lifetime Learning (SILL) series, Music Mondays, and Global Affairs.  We have in person tickets, but also the ability to watch the presentations online after the event.  So far, we have not felt comfortable going physically and sitting in a church sanctuary for an hour and a half midst a large crowd. It takes more discipline to set a time in the daily schedule to watch, but I’m happy to report that we have now viewed two programs. Both were excellent.  

Music Monday showcased two cellists, husband and wife Emilio and Cara Colon, who reside in Indiana, but are the founders of and forces behind the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico.  Emilio is from Puerto Rico. Together, the Colons strive to offer musical experiences and opportunities to students on that island in a variety of ways including an annual chamber music festival.   A charming pair, they played solo pieces as well as a couple duets.  The streaming version of this event was a high-quality production with great sound. 

The Global Issues program, Pandemics from “What If” to “What Now?” featured Dr. John Sinnott, Chairman of Internal Medicine at the University of South Florida.  He presented remotely. It was the best discussion of pandemics through the ages and the particularities of Covid-19 and how it’s transmitted in the body I’ve seen, heard, or read!  A scientifically based, well-articulated lecture with graphs and charts.  Dr. Sinnott has a You Tube channel, and there you will find several different programs including this brief intro.

MAINE ON THE PAGE

The Northern Reach by W. S. Winslow

(wswinslow.com)

The Northern Reach is a very accomplished first novel set in Maine.  Author Winslow spent a career in communications and marketing and has Maine roots.  Like Elizabeth Strout, she mines her deep familiarity with that state and its people in a series of interconnected chapters.  They are almost standalone short stories, but each one features one subset of a generation of one of four different families.  Ranging from 1904 to the 1920’s to the 1940’s and up to 2017, marriages, deaths, divorces, and disagreements mark these lives.  One family, the Baineses, are quite well off; the others fall between middle class and downright poor.  Overall, it’s a society built on tradition and loyalty to family but made messy with greed, envy, and competition.  

The writing is vivid and the details telling.  My only quibble is that with each chapter set in a different timeframe and with a different set of individuals, recalling the interrelationships between various generations can be tricky. 

My favorite chapter, Smoke Signals in the Aftertime, is about Alice Culligan’s death and the aftermath.  She was ready to die and let go.  She does die, but she remains cognizant of the world around her.  She hears her children discussing her, and not always in pleasant terms, and learns that events she thought she’d kept secret were well known to them.  (~JWFarrington)

“The minutes ticked on, and Alice listened as her children shared stories and swapped reminiscences so that, one finger at a time, they let her go, and as they did, the smoky fetters loosened and untangled themselves.  Alice lingered just long enough to gather up all the things she should have known, blended with it, became it, wafting, whisper, wisp, gone.”

COUNTRY VETS ON THE SCREEN

If you’re looking for something to watch to take your mind off Covid or whatever, this series set in a simpler time is mostly feel-good fare.

All Creatures Great and Small (Season 2, PBS)

James, Helen, Tristan (themes.co.uk)

Years ago, I read several of veterinarian James Herriot’s books and then watched the first TV production of All Creatures Great and Small.  It was enjoyable, homey, and low key.  Initially, I thought watching an updated version of it would be just so-so.  To my surprise and delight, I enjoyed the latest iteration a lot and was then thoroughly captivated by Season 2.  

James is charming and unsophisticated, Tristan is devil-may-care, and his older brother Siegfried, whose practice they have joined, is nothing if not definite.  He has strong opinions and tries to micro-manage his colleagues.  In this version, Mrs. Hall, the housekeeper is a key character with a bigger role, while farmer’s daughter Helen, aka James’ squeeze, is a woman of determination and dedication.  Season 2 contains seven episodes and is good escapism.

Note: Header drawing of an open head sprouting flowers is from feedingtampabay.org

Tidy Tidbits: Reading & Watching

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MEMOIRS:  OF GEOGRAPHY AND GENEALOGY

Mill Town:  Reckoning with What Remains by Kerri Arsenault

Kerri Arsenault (twitter.com)

Kerri Arsenault grew up in the small town of Mexico, Maine, adjacent to neighboring Rumford and home to an active paper mill.  Like the river Androscoggin that runs through the region, her memoir meanders along a nonlinear path.  We learn about her immediate family and her grandparents and great grandparents from Acadia. Almost all of these relatives worked in the mill and many died of cancer.

 Arsenault was one of the few of her cohort who left Maine and lived abroad, thanks to her husband’s military career.  Over many years, she sought to discover and document what toxic chemicals from the mill, dioxin being one example, were polluting the environment and leading to early deaths.  This quest for information and certainty (never arrived at) is a recurring thread in her detailed narrative.  

I found the first chapters somewhat overwritten. As I got further along, I appreciated her commentary on Mainers in general and the working class in particular.  Probably of greatest interest to those with Maine connections.  

Inheritance:  A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity and Love by Dani Shapiro

The author with her father (thecut.com)

Dani Shapiro’s beloved father died when she was only twenty-three.  Her mother died some years later, but was also gone when Shapiro sent her DNA for testing.  At age 54, the news that her father was not her biological father turned her world upside down. She felt forced to question many facets of her upbringing and her identity.  Raised an Orthodox Jew, her blonde hair and blue eyes were unlike other family members and drew comments. What she does with the information and how she tries to locate other relatives make for a dramatic story.  

I found her account riveting.  Most families have some secrets; the big secret in her family was overwhelming and initially devastating.  I predict an animated discussion when my book group takes it up next month.

ON THE SCREEN

As counterpoint to the ongoing societal strife, the Chief Penguin and I have been savoring gentler viewing options.

All Creatures Great and Small (PBS Masterpiece)

At the time, we watched the 1978 PBS version of veterinarian James Herriot’s memoirs.  I even read a couple of them.  I wondered if this new series would be engaging enough to hold my interest and was pleased when it did.  The setting is Yorkshire, England in the 1930’s. Newly minted Herriot arrives to become the latest assistant to Siegfried, an established vet with strong opinions.  Add in Siegfried’s hapless nephew Tristan, a housekeeper who nicely keeps everyone in line, sick animals and cantankerous farmers, and you have the makings of a lively drama.  A welcome change of pace!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Netflix)

Published in 2008, the historical novel of the same name was made into a movie in 2018. It’s set on the the island of Guernsey in 1946.  I had previously read the book and seen the film when it was released.  It’s a fun romantic story about a writer, Julia Ashton, who travels to Guernsey to research a local society that existed during the German occupation.  Her visit is prompted by a letter she receives from Dawsey, a local farmer who has a book she previously owned.  Some of the locals are quirky and suspicious of Julia’s motives, but her innate charm endears her to most.  The ending is predictable, the journey heartwarming and delightful.  Lily James sparkles as Julia.

CATCHING UP

The lifelong learning series we usually attend in the winter are virtual only and being offered for free.  This past week we watched three of the Global Affairs lectures, two given by former U. S. ambassadors.  One was on affairs in the Middle East, another on the issues facing President Biden, and the third about Covid-19—the vaccine effort, the international organizations playing a role in combatting it, and some insights behind the lack of preparation in this country. All were informative.