DINING ON THE BEACH
A venue for splurges, Beach Bistro in Holmes Beach has an unbeatable setting—literally on the beach—and a dining room that is charming even when filled to capacity. And this chef delivers. The food is delicious, something that isn’t always paired with a fabulous view. We were with good friends and had a table almost at the window, perfect for watching the rolling waves and marveling at the tangerine sunset. Especially tasty were the roast scallops in a bouillabaisse sauce and the spiny lobster done like escargots with a pinch of sautéed spinach.
MUSIC CONVERSATIONS
There seems to be a focus on opera in the Music Mondays series this year. This past week we had the pleasure of hearing from Joseph Volpe, former general manager of the Metropolitan Opera. Mr. Volpe spent his entire career there beginning as an apprentice carpenter and then working his way up the trade ladder to master carpenter and then to assistant manager and so on. As a child, he spent hours listening to opera recordings with his grandmother. This, coupled with a bent for things mechanical, helps explain his unusual career path. It was informative to hear his observations on working with the various singers and how he negotiated with them and their agents to determine what operas might be in the next season’s offerings. Now retired, Mr. Volpe lives in the Sarasota area and just agreed to take on an interim leadership role with the Sarasota Ballet.
READING THE MORBID
Death is high on the bestseller charts this season. Years ago, surgeon Sherwin Nuland, now deceased, wrote a fascinating book entitled How We Die, and I had the honor of hosting him for a lecture in San Francisco. More recently, Atul Gawande, one of my favorite New Yorker staff writers and also a physician, gave us Being Mortal, a compelling and thought-provoking account of end-of life stories and how families and physicians either ignore, or don’t make the effort to understand, what the dying patient would like. This book was enriched by Gawande’s inclusion of his own father’s last illness.
The newest books detail the untimely deaths of individuals who are far too young. When Breath Becomes Air is Paul Kalanithi’s account of his battle with Stage 4 lung cancer. A neurosurgeon in his late thirties, Kalanithi faces and describes his transition from doctor to patient. He was someone who had a lifelong curiosity about death and what might be most memorable here are his ponderings about the meaning of life, what makes for a good life, and the decision to create new life, as he and his wife have a child after his diagnosis. For more, here’s an interview he did in 2014, the year before he died.
The Iceberg by Marion Coutts is the wrenching account of her writer husband Tom Lubbock’s decline and then death after he is diagnosed with a brain tumor. As her spouse begins losing words, their young son Ev (initially 18 months old) is embracing the world and words as he acquires language. Coutts is an artist and I am finding her style somewhat too theatrical (who am I to judge, really, since I have never been in her shoes?), but believable nonetheless. In some ways, it’s the harder book for me.
WHODUNIT?
As a change of pace, I’ve been mildly diverted by Walter Walker’s novel, Crime of Privilege. Although the book cover reviews call it a thriller, that’s overstating the case. It’s really a story of a murder investigation by a young assistant DA, set on Cape Cod in the context of the wealthy and powerful Gregory family who can silence people and pressure the police. George Becket, the lawyer, has a guilty conscience over his own inaction years before in the face of a crime in Palm Beach and wonders if his life and position have all been a set-up. The precipitating events are clear echoes of those involving the Kennedys.
COLORING FUN!
I included these mostly for Sally and to show the variety of images one can color.
