Tidy Tidbits: Stage & Page

ON THE STAGE

The theater offerings in Sarasota are so well done and so polished that you almost don’t need to go to New York. This week we saw a stunningly good performance of Robert Schenkkan play, All the Way, at the AsoloI didn’t know of it before (not having followed Broadway closely in the past), but it was the Tony Award winning play of 2014.  It focuses on Lyndon Johnson’s presidency from immediately after Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 to LBJ’s election 11 months later.  Detailing Johnson’s determination to get a Civil Rights bill enacted, it is a linguistically colorful and dramatic account of all of the bullying, badgering, flattering and dealing that was required with stakeholders  as various as Martin Luther King and J. Edgar Hoover to the Southern Democrats in the House and Senate.  It was a turbulent period and timely in light of today’s discussions of racial profiling and the Black Lives Matter initiative.

As as a pre-Valentine treat, we enjoyed Living on Love, a musical romp about two self-centered aging celebrities, a flamboyant maestro and an equally narcissistic diva, long married to each other. Enter their ghost writers, an aspiring male novelist and an equally ambitious (for 1957) female editor, and you have conflict, comedy, and love.  Added in are the two male house staff whose Tweedledee and Tweedledum routine is a hoot!  At the end, besides singing and dancing, they offer up a revelation of their own.  Sheer fun!

BOOK REPORT

I admire Lauren Groff’s craft.  She is a creative writer and her staccato prose is full of picturesque allusions.  I read the first half of Fates and Furies, the part that is from playwright Lotto’s perspective, but then I abandoned the book after a few pages of Mathilde’s side of things.  I just didn’t care enough about these two individuals and their friends or their marriage to persevere.  It wasn’t fun nor, for me, rewarding.

On the other hand, I’m finding Beryl Markham’s West with the Night fascinating.  It’s a memoir, but according to the 2013 introduction by Sara Wheeler, a highly selective, edited one.  Markham had three husbands, but there’s nary a mention of any of them, and Wheeler states some events didn’t happen or have been altered.

Although Markham was a pioneering aviator, the book is primarily about her unconventional life in British East Africa (now Kenya) as a young child, as a racehorse trainer, and later as a mail pilot and tracker of elephants for hunters.  She was raised by her father, roamed the wilds with the natives, and learned to ride and hunt.  Originally published in 1942, the book was somewhat lost due to the war; when it was re-issued in 1983, Markham was still alive and the book had a surge of popularity.  She’s a lovely writer and the attention it got is well deserved!  It could easily be paired with one of Alexandra Fuller’s memoirs about her own haphazard upbringing in Africa.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

Header image:  valentine2015s.blogspot.com

Tidy Tidbits: Tides & Titles

WORDS ON WEATHER

Hunkering Down

Last weekend our friends and family cocooned in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New York during winter storm Jonas.  We watched from afar, thanks to the Weather Channel and the Web, almost gleeful that we were here in Florida.  But, like men’s sympathetic pregnancies, we hunkered down too—staying indoors, feasting on forbidden foods (a luscious strip steak!), and savoring hot soup.  After all, outside was only 50 degrees with a cold stiff wind and white caps on the bay!

Minus Tides

Living on the edge of said bay, we get to observe the daily and seasonal variation of the tides.  The changes over the course of a typical day are not usually extreme, but the other morning I noticed that it was low tide and we were getting a “mud flats” effect.  This is unusual for us and it got me to wondering about the tide levels.  I checked the newspaper and the low tide that morning for just before 8:00 am was a negative .6 feet.  Getting even more curious, I did a bit of research (thank you, Google!) and learned that there is a mean low tide number for each area that is considered zero; high and low tides are measured up or down against this.   So my minus six meant that this tide was half a foot lower than the mean low tide!  Hence the mud, hence more birds at the water’s edge.

And since the tides are governed partly by the moon, this week’s very low tide was associated with a gorgeous buttery-colored full moon.  My citizen science colleagues in California were always keen to be observing life in the tidal areas during minus low tides and scheduled outings with our volunteers for those dates, even if it meant being on the water at 5:00 or 6:00 am.

TITLES STACKED UP

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As usual, I have too many books waiting to be read, but that only means that I’ll never lack for reading material!  Here is a small selection of those waiting in the wings.

Expatriate Lives by Janice Y.K.  Lee.  (A much touted new novel by the author of The Piano Teacher.)

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff.  (I’ve put off long enough reading this highly praised novel from the author of The Monsters of Templeton.)

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout.  (The latest novel from the author of Olive Kittredge, one of my favorite books.)

West with the Night by Beryl Markham.  (A memoir by an early aviator, this will be a re-read for me for the local book group.  I first read it many years ago with the Penn book group.)

The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr.  (From the author of several raw, lay-it-bare memoirs, this book supposedly informs the reader how to create a memoir.)

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  (A pass along from my sister and an important contribution to the national discussion about race in America.)

POSTSCRIPT

I also want to report that I finished A Master Plan for Rescue and it was wonderful!  There’s a parallel story about a passenger on the ill-fated and unwelcome ship, St. Louis, and this man intersects with the boy Jack in ways that are initially amusing and touching and ultimately, life-changing.