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
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)
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
