Category: TV

Tidy Tidbits: Books & Music

JWF Leave a comment

AUTISM ON THE PAGE, STAGE AND SCREEN

This week the island book club read and discussed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. The selection was prompted in part by the play being presented locally at Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota.  It has been so popular that the run has been extended through March 17.  

The novel was published in 2003 and the group felt that there is much greater awareness of autism now and the range of autistic behaviors from Asperger’s syndrome to high functioning savants.  And, probably also greater acceptance.  Several had seen stage productions, either here or elsewhere. Generally, they felt the play successfully showed being overwhelmed by too much noise and multiple stimuli and then being further handicapped by not being easily able to communicate one’s thoughts and feelings.  

The lead character, 15-year old Christopher, is very smart, but also very literal. He is upset when his neighbor’s dog is killed with a pitchfork.  His mother is not present (he’s been told she died of a heart attack), and his father is angry with him for doing detective work to determine who did in the dog.  Christopher’s efforts and his findings lead him to make a train journey to London to visit his mother. This trip is a huge undertaking. Written in Christopher’s voice, the prose is straightforward and that plus Christopher’s drawings and diagrams are effective in portraying how he thinks.

I recently began watching an ABC television series, also available on Amazon Prime, entitled The Good Doctor.  Shaun Murphy is a young surgical resident who is autistic.  The hospital’s surgeons hesitate to hire him given his difficulties in communicating.  Under pressure from his mentor, the hospital president, they reluctantly take him on.  While socially awkward and at times inappropriate, Shaun is very smart and sees things on images and scans others miss.  It is an amazing depiction of the challenges even a gifted autistic individual faces in dealing with the rest of the world.

MUSICAL OFFERINGS

Music Monday always has someone of note to offer and this past week, it was Russian born pianist Olga Kern.  Ms. Kern is from a musical family with connections to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. While clearly talented, having won the Van Cliburn Piano Competition, she is also a delightful personality.  She charmed us with her exquisite playing (Rachmaninoff, Chopin, et al) and with her conversation.

Sarasota and the orchestra have been fortunate to have Anu Tali as music director.  She is winding up her sixth and final year as conductor and this week the orchestra delivered a paean to the community in the form of To Sarasota with Love.  Four principals in the orchestra, violin, horn, cello, and bassoon (all male), were featured in solos or duets.  These musicians, combined with Tali’s fluid, balletic conducting (with hands only and no baton), made for a most enjoyable evening.  She will be very much missed!

RECENT READING

Kitchen Yarns:  Notes on Life, Love, and Food by Ann Hood

Novelist Hood’s book is an engaging memoir with recipes.  She frequently references her Rhode Island upbringing in an Italian American family and her grandmother’s cooking.  The era of Hood’s childhood partly overlapped mine.  She calls out Good Seasons salad dressing, Rice-A-Roni (I never ate it, but certainly knew the ad jingle), and wishing to trade her homemade lunch for a friend’s more appealing one.  I always thought Sarah Wood’s bag lunches with a leftover chicken thigh looked delicious—much more appetizing than my cheddar cheese and mustard sandwich on cracked wheat.    

Hood’s life has had more than its share of sorrow including the early death of her brother and the loss of a child, but her writing is brimming with life and good feeling.  The recipes are mostly comfort food, not sophisticated, and sound tasty on the page.  GoGo’s Meatballs are calling my name! (~JWFarrington)

Note: Header photo of Any Tali by Kaupo Kikhas.

Tidy Tidbits: Mostly Books

JWF Leave a comment

CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

This year, for perhaps the first time ever, we stayed home for Christmas and purchased and put up a live tree.  In more recent years, we’ve gone to Manhattan for about ten days to see family.  This time, our son and family and our daughter-in-law’s parents all came to Florida.  With lively granddaughters ages 6 ½ and 2 ½, it was a boisterous and fun occasion!

Growing up, my grandparents and my aunts, uncles and cousins all lived hundreds of miles away and, thus, my family virtually always stayed home.  There were four kids plus my mom and dad, and we had our own well-established rituals and treats.  Stockings upon awakening before the parents were downstairs and then presents opened in rotation from youngest to oldest.  Most people would think this an unusual approach, not the bedlam of everyone tearing open gifts at once, but it slowed down the process, spread out the enjoyment and enabled us to see and comment on each other’s gifts.  We did it this up to the last Christmas we spent with my mother! She was a very organized individual and probably is the one who started it.

I also have good memories of my father bursting in through the front door, either just home from work or having completed an essential errand with something special to show us.  He always had a ready smile and brought with him warmth and palpable affection.

This year we created some new memories, especially for the little girls:  festive Christmas Eve dinner here with all the grandparents, walks along our quiet road, and swimming in the pool.   Plus, we reprised favorite activities; saucing the pizzas with Grandpa and providing Grandma an assist with blueberry pancakes for breakfast.  

I hope you enjoyed some equally special times this season.

HOLIDAY BRASS

Seraph is an all-female brass ensemble, five women playing trumpets (2 of them), trombone, tuba, and French horn.  Two weeks ago, they performed in Sarasota and their Sunday afternoon concert was a treat! A work by Grieg, selections from The Nutcracker Suite, along with a medley of favorite carols were among the highlights.  Their performance was enhanced by the fact that each member got to introduce one of the pieces and told us where she was from.

READERS’ FAVORITES

A few of my readers sent their choices for the best book or their favorite for 2018.  Here they are:

Barb:   Educatedby Tara Westover.  Her second choice would be:  The Language of Baklava, by Diana Abu-Jaber.

Cathie:  Mudboundby Hillary Jordan.  “Most thought provoking. It is set in 1950s rural Tennessee and focuses on the interactions between two families–one White and the other Black.” 

Claudia:  Overstoryby Richard Powers.  “I thought it should have won the Mann Booker prize. To me it was an ecological epic.”

RECENT READING

LOCAL HISTORY

The Ringmaster’s Wife by Kristy Cambron

Mable Burton, born Armilda, grew up on a farm and was keen to escape to a different life.  Heading for the big city of Chicago at the time of the world’s fair, she became a waitress and met a man named John.  Little did she realize initially that he was the already successful circus owner, John Ringling.  They eventually married and made a life for themselves, wintering in Sarasota, Florida. Mable Ringling loved roses and planted a rose garden that still exists on the Ringling Museum grounds. She also oversaw the design of their luxurious Italianate home, Ca d’Zan, House of John, which visitors today can tour.

In this historical novel, the fictional Rosamunde Easling, although a titled lady and wealthy, also seeks a more exciting life.  She loves riding her prized horse, and when the horse is sold, she agrees to see it to America where it will become part of the circus.  She too joins the circus.

Cambron is a Christian novelist, but this book is a good story, wholesome in some ways, but not overtly religious.  I selected the book because of its Sarasota setting and the chance to learn more about Mable Ringling, albeit in a fictionalized context.  

THE SOLACE OF BOOKS

Morningstar:   Growing Up with Books by Ann Hood

Novelist and essayist Hood has written a charming and engaging memoir about the books of her childhood beginning when she was a new reader all the way through her adolescence. Each chapter is pretty much devoted to one work, and I found that I had read almost all of her picks, as I too was an avid and voracious reader.  It’s a brief book, but one that will set you thinking about the books that made an impact on you.  

HISTORICAL NOVEL:  MORE WAR

The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason

I’ve read Mason’s other two novels and consider him an excellent stylist.  This recent novel is a grim one about Lucius, a young, inexperienced and mostly untrained physician, who is posted to a field hospital in the Carpathian Mountains during the First World War.  Conditions are primitive, supplies limited, and the risk of attack by enemy soldiers is high.  The senior doctor has left, and it is just Lucius, two orderlies, and the nurse Sister Margarete.  She teaches him how to amputate limbs and what the routine is.  Lucius is initially fascinated by her and gradually becomes attracted to her, but is unaware if his feelings are returned.  How the ongoing slog of the war wears them down and how the arrival of one severely injured soldier changes everything is the stuff of war, mystery, and even romance.  Mason is himself a physician and it is clearly evident in the plethora of gruesome details about wounds and battle scars.  Despite this, it’s a rewarding read!

SMALL SCREEN

I just finished the last episode of Season 3 of Silk, and I’m in mourning.  It was simply excellent!  I got so immersed in these characters, Martha, Clive, Billy, and the others, that I could hear their voices.  And the way the season ended, there could have been a next season, but apparently not in the cards.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This is my last blog post for 2018.  May 2019 be a healthy, happy year for everyone!

s

Tidy Tidbits: Culture Notes

JWF Leave a comment

MORE BESTS

As I indicated last week, the newspaper world is full of bests.  Even our local paper, Herald Tribune, offered up a selection of the best books of the year.  And the New York Times  seems to have gone overboard with each of its distinctive sections having its own, “The Best of 2018” edition.  On Sunday, “Arts & Leisure” had numerous articles including best classical music, best pop music, best television programs, best streamed television, best movies, best art exhibits and so on.  This week the Wednesday “Food” section had its own best of the year features:  best restaurants, “The Top Cheap Eats, Dish by Dish,” a listing of twelve remarkable wines, and the recipes that were the favorites of readers.  I liked the Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies and the Beef and Broccoli stir fry.  Something here for every taste and palate! 

FABULOUS THEATER!

Asolo Repertory Theater always delivers and they did it again this week with energy and style. Their production of The Music Man was a tap dance lovers’ bonanza with frenetic footwork, lively music, and some lovely singing, particularly by Britney Coleman as Marian the Librarian.  Noah Racey who plays Professor Harold Hill is a choreographer as well as actor and it showed; his professor was perhaps less brash than Robert Preston’s in the original movie, but still winning.  And Marion came across as a more rounded character, less innocent sweet maiden and more complex woman with dreams and determination.  

I would have said that The Music Man was lower down on my list of favorite musicals, but I enjoyed every minute of this production.  There are still more performances between now and Dec. 29.

SMALL SCREEN

Silk (Amazon Prime)

Thanks to my friend Patricia for this recommendation.  Martha Costello is one of a group of lawyers in a British firm plugging away defending clients in court cases and vying to become “Silk” or QC, that is Queen’s Counsel. Single and singleminded, she is hard driving, while her colleague Clive Reader, from a posh background, appears less dedicated and always with an eye for the female solicitors.  Lording it over all of the office is Billy Lamb, the senior clerk, who makes case assignments and minds the books, or perhaps cooks them. I’m now into Season 2 of this BBC production and enjoying it immensely as it keeps me going on the treadmill! 

Homecoming (Amazon Prime)

This original series from Amazon has gotten a lot of praise from the press and at least one award nomination for its star, Julia Roberts.  The setting is a facility that runs a residential program for returning vets who have been diagnosed with PTSD or other issues.   Roberts plays Heidi Bergman, a counselor there.  Each episode is only thirty minutes long, and I can see why.  Much of each episode focuses on her sessions with one or more of the residents, with occasional leaps forward to the present day when we see Heidi working as a waitress at a cheap joint.  

What happened to make her leave the Geist program and why did one of her clients leave at the same time?   We have now watched five episodes and while it’s well done, it’s also somewhat weird.  

MOVIE TIME

Puzzle

We missed Puzzle when it was in theaters and so decided to pay the nominal rental fee of $4.99 to watch it here at home.  Starring Kelly Macdonald, it’s a measured, deliberate film about Agnes, a married mother of two grown sons, who has little self esteem and no satisfying function in life other than serving at the beck and call of husband Louie and those sons.  They show little appreciation for her efforts on their behalf and can’t understand why she might want more in her life.  Until she receives a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle for her birthday and discovers she’s good at it!  

Thus begins Agnes’, aka Martha’s, tentative steps toward independence, as she gains a male puzzle partner (Irrfan Khan) and ventures regularly beyond the confines of her own home and town.  I liked this film a lot, although some might find the pacing slow.

Maine Time: Of Spies and Ghosts

JWF 1 Comment

In my view, summer is a time for excess.  Lots of lobster.  Indulging in more carbs and sweets, bingeing on television series, and reading beach books as well as serious literature.  This past week, the Chief Penguin and I devoted morning and evening hours to The Americans and Crownies while I also included an atmospheric historical novel (The Tea Planter’s Wife) midst my reading of Lincoln in the Bardo.

VIEWING

Legal Fix—Crownies (Acorn)

If like me, you became addicted to the Janet King series and you are a big fan of Marta Dusseldorp, then I can recommend the predecessor series, Crownies.

The Aussies like their slang (witness a recent article in the WSJ about the heated debated over “parma” versus “parmy” for chicken parmiagiana), and “crownies” are young lawyers working for the Department of Public Prosecutions in Sydney.  Janet King is a character here and there are other familiar faces, Richard, Erin, Lina, and Andy, plus Tony and Tracey, to name just a few.  Janet is more senior in rank and the others are getting their feet wet in preparing briefs and going up before the judges.

Filmed beginning in 2011, it’s looser and has a lot more sex than Janet King, but the cases it presents are serious and complex, making for intelligent and absorbing viewing.  Interestingly enough, some reviewers loved this series and found Janet King somewhat boring and tame.  Others felt just the reverse. I think, on balance, I prefer the greater seriousness of JK.  Crownies, with characters like Tatum who is always dressed more for partying at a nightclub than for work and acts it too, can be tediously sophomoric at times.

Sunken Garden in Wiscasset

Spies in DC—The Americans  (Spoiler alert)

While overall, I think there are more excellent British and Australian series than American ones, this series, The Americans, is simply brilliant! We just binge watched season 6, the final series and it’s so well done.

We get the unraveling of Elizabeth and Philip’s lives as spies, Stan’s curiosity and puzzlement changing to downright suspicion, Paige’s tutoring by her mother and Claudia coupled with her idealistic view of what they are working to accomplish—all set against a changing world.  The end of the Cold War is at hand, Gorbachev is coming to the U.S. for the summit and in 1987, the spy game is changing.

Philip is out of the business, mostly, trying to succeed as a businessman at their travel agency, his and Elizabeth’s relationship is strained and broken, Paige is allied with her mother, and Philip is the parent who pays attention to Henry away at school.  How it all ends, how Stan caves, how the Jenningses get away, and who stays behind as the family is fractured is compelling drama.

RECENT READING

#16  The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jefferies

A historical novel set on a tea plantation in Ceylon, Jefferies’ novel is lush and atmospheric and filled with mystery, love and lust.  It’s perfect for whiling away a rainy afternoon.  At just nineteen, Gwen goes out from London to Ceylon to join her new husband, thirty-seven year old Laurance Hooper, a widower she married after a whirlwind romance.  Attracted to the beauty and scents of this new world, Gwen has questions about her husband’s late first wife Caroline, is confused and uncomfortable with the shabby treatment of the native workers, and unhappy over the continuing presence of Laurance’s sister Verity in their home.

When she gives birth to twins, she faces a difficult decision and the resulting secret plus secrets from the past will haunt them all:  Gwen, Verity, Laurance, and her servant and almost friend Naveena.  (~JWFarrington)

#17 Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

In my limited reading experience with several Man Booker Prize winners, I have found them to be some of the most offbeat and unusual novels and the most challenging to read. Saunders won the Man Booker Prize for this, his first novel, and it’s hard to find appropriately punchy adjectives to describe it, but I’ll start with weird, inventive, bizarre, strange, and haunting.  To gain the most from this work, it’s helpful to have a working definition of bardo. One can infer from the novel that it’s a state of being that is sort of between life as we know it and complete death. Or to quote from a recent article by Pema Rinpoche:

In bereavement, we come to appreciate at the deepest, most felt level exactly what it means to die while we are still alive. The Tibetan term bardo, or “intermediate state,” is not just a reference to the afterlife. It also refers more generally to these moments when gaps appear, interrupting the continuity that we otherwise project onto our lives. In American culture, we sometimes refer to this as having the rug pulled out from under us, or feeling ungrounded. These interruptions in our normal sense of certainty are what is being referred to by the term bardo. But to be precise, bardo refers to that state in which we have lost our old reality and it is no longer available to us.

Abraham Lincoln’s son Willie died at the age of eleven in 1862 and Lincoln visited the cemetery late at night.  In Saunders’ novel, the graveyard is populated by ghosts who interact with one another and who observe Willie’s burial and the visit by the president. These ghosts appear not to have gone fully over into death or at least they don’t fully realize that they are in fact dead.

The novel is structured like a Greek chorus with a series of voices in a continuous stream each spouting his or her lines and each speaker identified by name.  Interspersed with the fictional ghosts are snippets quoted from real historical works.  These excerpts add color, context and factual detail.  The ghosts run the gamut in their speech being coarse and ribald, argumentative, reflective, or even philosophical.  Together the lead threesome of Hans Vollman, Roger Bevins iii, and the Reverend Everly Thomas, collaborate to try to bring Lincoln together with his son one last time to provide him solace and to ease Willie’s transition to the next world.

This description makes the novel sound all very matter of fact, when it’s anything but that. Rather it’s a somewhat mesmerizing experience that caught this reader up in its momentum, so that while I found it initially off putting and weird, I also found it awesome and compelling.  It truly is a novel unlike any other I’ve ever read.  (~JWFarrington)

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved)