COVID-19 & STAYING HOME
Other than one trip to the supermarket, we have not left our island neighborhood for the past week. We are fortunate to be having gorgeous weather (sunny and warm) and have walked our boulevard each morning and then gone to the pool in the late afternoon—always mindful of keeping an appropriate distance from each other. In between, cooking or baking, reading, and viewing have been the main activities. Plus, a lot of shopping online.
With restaurants only allowed to offer curbside pick-up or delivery, we will be experimenting with that in the next few days. For my local friends, both Alice’s Ristorante Italiano (formerly A Casa Tua) and Bonefish Grill either are already or will be offering revised menus.
SUPPORT YOUR INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE!
Like restaurants, independent bookstores face the challenge of staying in business since they can no longer invite customers into their physical spaces. If you value your own local bookstore, order books from them online. You can probably pick them up curbside or have them mailed to your home. Yes, it will cost you more than going the Amazon route, but thinking ahead, don’t you want them to still be here when the pandemic subsides? Here’s an article about this topic. And here’s a link to my favorite Sarasota bookstore where I just ordered several titles to be mailed.
IMMERSED IN A BOOK
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
When there are no lectures, plays or concerts to go to, it’s possible to spend more time reading. I mentioned this book about the Troubles in my last blog and this week, I devoted myself to completing it. Once I got fully into it (it took me a chapter or two as there are a lot of factions with different names and acronyms to keep straight!), I got caught up in the lives of the principals: Dolours and Marian Price, Brendan Hughes, and Gerry Adams (all IRA members who participated in deadly violence), and in the impact on the McConville children whose 38-year old mother, Jean, was dragged from their home one evening in 1972 and never returned. She was one of the aptly called “disappeared.” For decades her children sought to locate her body.
This is a tale of religious conflict, hatred of the British, bombings, imprisonment, hunger strikes, and double agents. For thirty years, Northern Ireland, especially Belfast, was not a safe nor a pretty place to be. Even after the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, lingering resentment and outrage were the order of the day for some.
I found Keefe’s narrative nonfiction both compelling and chilling. He explores the actions and interactions of the infamous Price sisters over several decades along with the transformation of Gerry Adams from revolutionary commander to savvy politician to elder statesman, Adams all the while denying he was ever a member of the IRA. Also fascinating for me, a former librarian, was learning about the secret archival interview project housed at Boston College. The interview with Dolours Price, for example, was intended to be unavailable until after her death. What protections were not put in place and what the college didn’t know later resulted in subpoenas and lawsuits. A long read, but absorbing and rewarding. (~JWFarrington)
CURRENT VIEWING
With movie theaters closed, it’s now possible to rent and watch first run movies from several different streaming sources. The Chief Penguin found Vudu.com (I had suggested Hulu, but somehow, he ended up here), and together we created a list of films to view. First up last evening was Emma, which is also available through Apple TV.
Emma
I’ve seen several versions of Jane Austen’s Emma over the years, some I liked and some I didn’t (Clueless). This Emma is Jane Austen on a romp. For a story that is about emotions, meddling, and misunderstandings, there is a lot of physicality that makes it visually exciting. The repeating line of schoolgirls in their long red capes, the twisting, twirling patterns of the ballroom dancing, the running or flinging onto grassy slopes (witness both Emma and Knightley). Add to this scenes of Knightley or Emma in various stages of dressing or undressing. Coupled with this is a soundtrack of rousing folk melodies, almost hymns, providing transition between scenes.
Against this visual and aural background, you have an Emma who is always perfectly coiffed and stylishly put together, arrogant, convinced of her rightness, and rude. You don’t dislike her totally; you see her gradually become aware of the error of her ways, thanks in part to Mr. Knightley. And, as is the norm for Austen, all comes right in the end! I found the film a perfect entertainment. (~JWFarrington)
