Return to Manhattan & More

RETURN TO THE BIG APPLE

The Chief Penguin and I are back in Manhattan after almost a year and a half.  And it’s different.  Covid-19 has taken its toll with more empty storefronts, favorite restaurants shuttered, fewer people on the streets, and less traffic all around.  But, and it’s a welcome but, the city is becoming alive again!  The Upper East Side seems more active than the West Village, possibly the difference between residents and schools in one area and more tourists in the other.

Dining space at Via Carota

Restaurant dining is reviving.   We appreciated and benefited from the creativity shown in the various outdoor structures that have been built in the street or on the sidewalk. 

 We dined at two favorites, Sel et Poivre, very distanced from other diners, and Via Carota, which is serving exclusively outside.  Sitting at a sidewalk table, we also sampled a Mediterranean restaurant new to us called A la Turka.

Fancy dining structure at JoJo

Reservations are essential since dining capacity is still limited by NYS rules.  That can mean you need to reserve farther ahead (2 weeks out) or not until a day before.  Overall, we’re delighted to be here, enjoying the bustle of the city and spending time with our marvelous granddaughters.

WATCHING AND READING

IN-DEPTH BIOGRAPY SERIES

Hemingway (PBS)

Ernest Hemingway was an incredibly complex man.  Product of a dysfunctional family, whose father committed suicide, he, nonetheless, was a superb storyteller and masterful stylist whose novels made an indelible impression on American literature.  Filmmaker Ken Burns has a reputation for delving deeply into whatever topic he presents from baseball to the Civil War.  Here, this attention to detail and nuance is focused on one man’s adventurous life.  

Hemingway had four wives and other women along the way, he fought in several wars, he loved Spain, and he lived in Cuba.  Aside from his personal life, this 3-part series provides a close examination of each of Hemingway’s works from early novels to his account life in Paris (A Moveable Feast) to late works such as The Old Man and the Sea.  Literary scholars offer additional analysis, but I found most intriguing the comments from other writers like Tobias Woolf and Mary Karr, but especially those of the Irish novelist, Edna O’Brien.  It’s a fascinating journey from beginning to end!

WORLD WAR II MYSTERY

Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear

I’ve read all the Maisie Dobbs mysteries, and this is one of the best.  I’m even wondering if it’s Winspear’s swan song for Maisie.  But there’s an historic event at the end that leaves the door open.

Freddie, a young messenger boy, witnesses what appears to be a murder.  Did he really see it?  No body is found.  While haunted by Freddie’s experience, Maisie is primarily working for Scotland Yard vetting special agents for Resistance work in France.  Two young women she knows are among the interviewees.  Maisie’s personal life is also more complicated. She has a young daughter and an American friend and love named Mark Scott.

This novel details more about what’s involved in fighting a war in 1940 when England is regularly being bombed.  It feels more personal than Winspear’s earlier works with a minor theme of friendship and love. There’s a poignant quote about whether war makes one too brittle to relax and accept love.

If you like mysteries that focus more on the people and procedures with less high drama, then this is for you.  I find Maisie endlessly fascinating! (~JWFarrington)

More colorful tulips!

Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Women: Historical & Fictitious

Here are several portrayals of women, four who are historical, that is real people, and one from a novel adapted for a television series.

BIOGRAPHY—OVERDUE RECOGNITION

The Agitators: Three Friends who Fought for Abolition and Women’s Rights by Dorothy Wickenden

One of the satisfactions of the times we’re living in is seeing women whose achievements have been overlooked getting the recognition they deserve.  One example is the New York Times’ ongoing publication of lost obituaries.  Obituaries of individuals, mainly women, whose accomplishments went unnoticed and largely unrecorded.

Dorothy Wickenden is the executive editor of The New Yorker and author of Nothing Daunted:  The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West.  In The Agitators, Wickenden details the unlikely friendship and the overlooked successes of three women, two white and one Black.  They all lived in Auburn, N.Y., an upstate town between Syracuse and Rochester. Auburn was more notable in the 19th century than in subsequent years.  The women are Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward (wife of William Henry), and Martha Coffin Wright.  They had a warm friendship and supported each other while working separately and together to abolish slavery and gain women the right to vote.

Tubman on the left, circa 1887 (GettyImages)

Most readers will know of Harriet Tubman’s work as a leader in the Underground Railroad and as a cook, nurse, and scout for the Union Army.  They might not know that Frances Seward sold Tubman a house and that Tubman moved her parents from Canada to this Auburn property.  Auburn was an appropriate way station between Maryland and Canada.  Later on, Tubman turned her house into a home for the aged. When she stopped traveling, Harriet spent her remaining years in Auburn until her death in 1913.

Frances Seward (1805-1865) (sewardhouse.org)

Frances Miller Seward grew up in Auburn, a well-educated daughter of a judge.  When married, she and Henry (as W. H. was known) moved in with her widowed father. Frances had strongly held views on the need to end slavery and also on women’s rights, but she was active mostly under the radar.  Although she chafed at having to moderate her views publicly and not be as visible as she would have liked, she did it out of deference for Henry’s positions. He served as governor of New York State, U.S. senator, and ultimately, President Lincoln’s Secretary of State.  Quietly, Frances helped fugitive slaves by lending their stately home as a stop on the railroad.  She also participated in a number of the women’s rights conventions and several anti-slavery societies. Her views about how to combat slavery were stronger than Henry’s.  She was a real hero whose many deeds were only fully acknowledged after her death and not even then by some powerful men.

Martha Wright (1806-1875) (b-womeninamericanhistory19.blogspot.com)

Martha Wright, sister of the better-known activist Lucretia Mott, liked questioning institutions and upsetting the status quo.  She grew up in Philadelphia and moved to Cayuga County to be a teacher. There she met David, her future husband and a lawyer. An activist and a feminist at heart, Martha was one of the organizers of the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls in 1848. With Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, she played a leadership role in future conventions, and regularly spoke, wrote, and gathered petition signatures on behalf of women’s suffrage and abolition. Like Frances, she too occasionally contended with objections from her husband.  These three women were each outstanding, and together they advanced these causes. Their gravesites are in Fort Hill Cemetery which was established in 1851.

This book has personal appeal for me.  I spent most of my childhood until college in Auburn, attended Seward Elementary School, and have visited Harriet Tubman’s home.  When Alaska, Seward’s Folly, became a state in 1959, Auburn celebrated in a big way.  My father served on one of the organizing committees, and I spent an afternoon hawking statehood souvenir programs in front of the Grand Union supermarket.  My mother was a volunteer at the Seward House Museum in her later years and is buried in Fort Hill Cemetery.  The cemetery is as lovely as Wickenden states. 

Personal connections aside, this is a superb book! It’s chock full of fascinating history: of the early women’s rights movement, the passing of the Married Women’s Property Act, the Underground Railroad, and the battles of the Civil War, all presented with a female perspective.  Highly recommended! (~JWFarrington)

ON THE SMALL SCREEN

NORWAY AND THE U.S.

Atlantic Crossing (PBS Masterpiece)

Crown Princess Martha of Norway (royal court.no)

Early in the Second World War, Norway was attacked and occupied by the Nazis. The royal family split up and left the country for their safety.  Crown Prince Olav and his father, King Haakon VII, joined the prime minister and his cabinet in London. Princess Martha and their children attempted to find refuge in Sweden (her birthplace and where her uncle reigned), but that became difficult and then politically untenable.  She eventually made a safe crossing to the United States and lived first in the White House and then at a large estate nearby.  

This 8-part series focuses on Princess Martha: her relationship with President Roosevelt and her attempts to gain recognition of Norway’s plight and get aid for the country.  In the process, she becomes less reserved and a strong woman of consequence.

It’s a compelling piece of world history I was not aware of and makes for very dramatic viewing.  Once again, Masterpiece comes through with a high-quality production that will have you anxiously anticipating what happens next.

TRUE LOVE OR NOT

The One (Netflix)

CEO Rebecca Webb (datebook.sfchronicle.com)

This 8-part Netflix original series is about another powerful woman, this time a fictitious one who seems totally without morals.  Rebecca Webb and scientist James Whiting develop a DNA match process that purports to match a person with his or her one true love, a love that happens instantaneously.  They market it and call the company, The One.  

How did now CEO Rebecca prove that the matches work?  A body turns up in the river, a married couple get into difficulty when one of them signs up for The One, and a female detective gets matched, but then has questions about the results.  These subplots all play into a larger sci-fi crime story revolving around the ambitious and ruthless Rebecca.  Based on a novel by James Marrs, it’s fast moving, fascinating and grabs you from the start!

Note: Header photo is of Crown Prince Olav and Princess Martha of Norway in Washington, D.C. in 1939, courtesy of Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons.

A POTPOURRI OF VIEWING CHOICES

Today, March 14, is the International Day of Mathematics.  This date was chosen and proclaimed by UNESCO in November 2019.  Previously, 3/14 had already been known around the world as Pi Day.  In celebration of Pi (3.14159), some people bake round pies, both sweet and savory. Perhaps you are having pie today too!

(delish.com)

FREUD’S FEMALE CASE

Hysterical Girl

Filmmaker Kate Novack is the daughter of good friends of ours.  Her earlier film, The Gospel according to Andre, profiled Andre Talley, an illustrious Black member of staff at Vogue.  

This short film (just 13 minutes) takes Sigmund Freud’s account of his lone female patient, Dora, and re-envisions it in Dora’s own words.  It’s fast moving and filled with graphic clips from contemporary history.  Everything from Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford at the Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings to images of women being bullied, mistreated, or sexually abused.  Women as objects through the decades.  

It’s powerful and thought-provoking!  For more background, see the following article.  Hysterical Girl is in contention for an Oscar nomination.  

SLAVERY ENDS IN JAMAICA

The Long Song  (PBS Masterpiece)

Mistress Caroline & July (pbs.org)

This series is sent in Jamaica beginning before the Christmas Rebellion of 1831 and continuing through the abolition of slavery in 1833.  It’s a different piece of the slavery story based on a novel by Andrea Levy.  

July is a young slave woman who captures the attention of the plantation’s white overseer.  Enamored with each other, July and Robert Goodwin have what resembles a common law marriage when he takes Caroline, the plantation owner, as his wife.  

This is an engrossing story with painful images, but an almost too pat ending.  Levy, a British author with Jamaican roots, also wrote the novel, Small Island.

INDIA IN THE 19TH CENTURY

Beecham House  (PBS Masterpiece)

John Beecham flanked by his mother & his brother Daniel (britishperioddramas.com)

The first episode of this 6-part series is a bit slow and when we set out to watch it a year ago, we gave up.  This time around, we were more patient and got caught up in the intrigue.  Set in Delhi in 1800, it focuses on the enigmatic, handsome John Beecham who arrives at the palatial Beecham House with an entourage including his baby son, but no mother.  The British are there through the East India Company, an emperor reigns, and the French vie to keep the British at bay.  There are secrets, treachery, and class and caste differences.  

The production is lavish while the complexities of the interrelationships draw in the viewer.  The series ends with a cliffhanger, a mystery that awaits no planned second season.  And fans of Downton Abbey will recognize Beecham’s mother as Mrs. Patmore, the cook. Worth watching.

WHICH GRANDPARENT IS THE CHOSEN PARENT?

Black or White  (Netflix)

(nydailynews.com)

Kevin Costner is a lawyer and a grandfather raising Eloise, his biracial granddaughter.  When his wife dies in a car accident, the other grandmother, Rowena, and her n’er-do-well son (the girl’s father) sue to gain custody of Eloise.  Octavia Spencer plays Rowena, an enterprising businesswoman, who feels strongly that the girl will benefit from being a part of an extended Black family.  

The film focuses on the legal battle with a wise Black judge presiding in the courtroom.  It’s a good film, not a great one, but the little girl who plays Eloise is delightful!

Note: Header photo of a decorated pie courtesy of newschannel10.com

Tidy Tidbits: Reading & Watching

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.