Author: JWF

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Tidy Tidbits: Escaping in Place

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BINGEING ON CRIME

DCI Banks (Amazon Prime)

This detective series is a BBC production from several years ago.  I think it is excellent.  Alan Banks is a middle-aged chief inspector in Yorkshire with a dour demeanor and a sometimes-sour look.  You’d think he’d be hardnosed, but underneath that façade, he is compassionate toward victims and diplomatic when necessary.  Yet, he drives his team forcefully in the hunt for any killer.  His primary colleagues are two women:  DS Annie Cabbot, a smart energetic individual who’s in love with Banks, and DI Helen Morton, a by-the-book precise person dealing with complexities in her own life.  

Banks with Helen Morton & Annie Cabbot (imbd.com)

 Each case is over two episodes.  The cases are complicated with multiple threads which is what makes them engaging.  There are crime scenes, but they are not overly gruesome.   The focus is on identifying suspects, following up links, and arriving at answers as to who killed a person and why.  The TV series is based on author Peter Robinson’s long running book series which now totals twenty-six titles.  Highly recommended!

The Fall (Netflix)

Set in Belfast, The Fall is a crime series about a serial killer and the detective from London who is brought in to oversee an earlier failed murder investigation.  Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson sees linkages between a much earlier murder and more recent ones, but they have no solid leads.  Paul Spector, the serial killer, is smart and ruthless.  He stalks young professional women and then breaks into their homes to do them in.  He leads a double life as a grief counselor and a married father of two young children.  Gibson is a complex character also, a sharp, high-ranking woman in a field dominated by men.  And the setting in Northern Ireland with its political issues adds another layer of tension.

What holds my interest is the police investigative work.  The enactments of the murders are graphic.  At this point, after four episodes of Season 1, I am ready to quit.  The pace is measured, the crime images troubling.  Although it received high praise as a psychological thriller, I don’t really recommend it, unless you are strong-hearted.  For those who are curious, there are three seasons.

CHANGE OF PACE READING

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali

I stumbled upon a reference to this novel online and ordered it.  It is beautiful.   Set in Tehran in 1953 and in the Boston suburbs in 2013, it’s a love story.  But a love story marked by political upheaval, class distinctions, and the passage of time, decades even.  Roya and Bahman meet in a stationery shop in 1953 just before the coup that ousts the Iranian prime minister.  They are seventeen, passionate about one another, and eager to spend their lives together.  

With the political crisis, everything changes and Roya leaves Iran to attend college in California.  She marries Walter and has a mostly satisfactory life.  When she’s 77, an unexpected encounter opens a floodgate of memories and the chance to re-visit part of her past.  

Kamali has a delicate style. She weaves together strands of politics and Persian food and culture into a novel about parental love, familial obligations, and romance. For more information about Kamali’s childhood in Iran and her life in the States, follow the link on her name above.

MY STATIONERY SHOP

Like Roya and Bahman in the novel above, I too sought quietude, but no romance, in my local bookstore.  G. W. Ockenfels was located downtown.  They sold books, but also greeting cards and stationery.  It was a quiet shop, with a wooden floor and aisles with tall shelves as I recall, and the smell of paper and ink.   Mr. and Mrs. Ockenfels who owned and ran it were always welcoming.

I was in my teens, and didn’t have much spending money.  Customers were few and I could browse uninterrupted for long periods.  Over time, I became a regular, known to them by face and then by name. After I had selected and paid for a book, it was always carefully wrapped in pale blue paper and then meticulously tied up with very thin twine. 

In later years, Mr. O. became a bit confused.  He also began dispensing bear hugs that then were uncomfortable, but today might be reportable.  It was a sanctuary for me that became a little less so and then, as often happens in small towns, the Ockenfels went out of business.

Note: Header and book jacket photo ©JWFarrington.

View of cove at Molly’s Point

Departing Maine & Arriving Florida

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WINDING DOWN MAINE

Our airline threw us a curve when it changed our departing flight from a very civilized 12:45 pm to before sunrise at 6:00 am.  Thus, we left our rental house a day early, drove down to Portland and spent the night at the airport Hilton Garden Inn,.  We’d been told that the hotel was offering no services (no food, no shuttle) and that it was mostly empty.  Imagine our surprise, when we arrived and learned that they were sold out that night!  Granted, it was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, but early in the week, the hotel gentleman had said everyone’s gone home, back to school and so on.  

We took an Uber to downtown Portland, the Old Port area, our first time there this summer, and wandered around a bit.  Many streets in that neighborhood are closed off and restaurants abound, offering food and drink outside in properly spaced tables and booths.  There were more people on the street than I’d seen anywhere.

Creative way to offer drinks and food

We had booked an early table on the patio (really in the street) for dinner at Petite Jacqueline, a bistro we’d frequented in the past.  The tables were appropriately distanced, and all the staff were wearing masks.  It was a treat to be waited upon and served.  We enjoyed a panzanella salad and roasted Brussels sprouts followed by lobster rolls with tarragon mayonnaise and a stack of sinful skinny fries.

FLYING IN THE AGE OF COVID

Maine is serious about social distancing and wearing masks and there were signs and announcements galore at the Portland airport.  It’s paid off because they have one of the lowest numbers of cases and deaths of any state in the U.S.  

American Airlines was also serious.  Although they don’t block off any seats on the planes, they required everyone to be wearing a mask. The flight attendants on both flights went up and down the aisle several times checking.  They also warned that noncompliant passengers could be denied the right to fly with them in the future.  No food or drink was offered.

In the Charlotte airport, there were also announcements about masks, but they didn’t sound as forceful as those in Portland.  I did see a couple of individuals without masks.  And I was struck by how busy this airport was—-many more people traveling than when we’d flown on a Tuesday in mid-July!  

Both our flights boarded efficiently, left on time, and arrived on time or few minutes early.  Deplaning was done by rows from the front.  Passengers were requested to wait seated until the row in front of them had been vacated, and folks seem to cooperate with this instruction.  All in all, I felt as safe as was possible given everything.

FLORIDA RE-ENTRY

mangroves along the bay
Mangroves overlooking Sarasota Bay

When we left home in July, the state of Florida was a Covid-19 hotspot.  Our area wasn’t as bad as Miami-Dade, but still far too many new cases each week and very spotty mask requirements or enforcement.  Now, there are more signs about masks and, it seems more people are being observant.  Before we left town, Fresh Market required masks to enter, but Publix supermarkets did not.  We are pleased that now masks are required for entering a Publix.

The Hannaford stores in Maine made their grocery aisles one way with green arrows on the floor on one end and red exit signs at the other.  I’d gotten so used to this that I kept expecting to see a green arrow in Publix allowing me to proceed down the aisle, but not so.  

It was 57 degrees when we woke up in Maine on Saturday, 82 the afternoon before in Portland, and 80 this morning here in Florida with a predicted high of 94!  Boy, did I love the cool pleasant air of the Maine coast!

VIEWING

Radioactive (Amazon Prime)
Rosamund Pike (the guardian.com)

I didn’t realize until this film was almost over that it is based on Lauren Redniss’ 2010 graphic novel of the same name.  That’s a colorful arty book chock full of information.   I had read it with science book club I facilitated at the Academy of Sciences in San Franciso. 

Marie Curie, its subject, was a passionate, arrogant, brilliant, driven woman.  She loved science and was determined to do science no matter who or what might get in her way.  The film recounts her struggle to get lab space, her attraction to and then marriage to Pierre Curie, and their joint work on radium.  That same radium sickened them both and he died an early death.  Madame Curie was passionate in her personal life also. Her later affair with a married man sullied her somewhat suspect reputation as a “dirty Pole.”  

The film is gripping and full of emotion.  It is less successful with the interjection of more contemporary events, such as the use of radiation to treat cancer or the tragedies of Hiroshima and Chernobyl.  While these events highlight the positive and negative sides of the Curies’ discoveries, they are jarring interruptions in the arc of Marie’s life.  Nonetheless, definitely worth watching! (~JWFarrington)

Note: Header photo and other unattributed photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).
  

View from Newagen to Hunting Island

Maine Time: Viewing & Reading

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RECENT VIEWING

Soldier Father Son

This New York Times documentary is moving and extremely well crafted.  Brian Eisch is a single parent of Isaac and Joey and a career soldier fighting the war in Afghanistan.  When he sustains a serious leg injury, he returns home to a life very different from the one he had envisioned.  He’s in constant pain, can’t do the activities he’s always done with his sons, and his sense of manhood is diminished by this loss of physicality. Opening in 2010, the film follows Brian in Afghanistan through having part of his leg amputated and all the adjustments recovery requires. The intervening years bring new relationships (Brian’s girlfriend Maria) and unexpected grief, ending in 2019 when Isaac has transitioned from high school student to Army soldier. It presents a slice of life many of us have never experienced and is raw and tender and gritty. Highly recommended!

Endeavour (PBS Masterpiece)
Thursday & Morse

This is Season 7 of Endeavour.  Only three episodes in all, but each one is 90 minutes, and unlike previous seasons, they are all interconnected.  A series of murders on the canal towpath seem to have been successfully solved, but then another one occurs.  Morse has a new woman in his life and a budding friendship with a rich Italian.  He and Detective Thursday have their usual grumbles and disagreements, but this time Morse may have gone too far and caused a permanent rupture.  And we get a warmer, more relaxed side of Superintendent Bright in tender moments with his invalid wife. In each episode, we also have more of the private lives of the principals, adding to the richness of the series.  Recommended!

BEACH READ—SARASOTA SCENE

Footprints in the Sand by Mary Jane Clark (2013)

I believe I got an online offer for this Piper Donovan mystery.  It’s part of a 5-book series of Wedding Cake Mysteries, and not something I’d ever normally purchase.  I was probably lured by a cheap Kindle price and by the Sarasota/Siesta Key setting.

Siesta Key Beach (bestwesternsiestakey.com)

Protagonist Piper Donovan is an actor turned wedding cake baker who gets hired to make these fancy cakes in gorgeous locations.  She and her parents fly to Sarasota for her cousin Kathy’s wedding.  Kathy’s best friend is missing and then found dead. Thus, begins a whole series of murders.  Piper sticks her nose in foolishly and, with telephone advice from her FBI boyfriend Jack, attempts to help solve the mysteries.  

This is what’s called a cozy mystery, murders yes, but little in the way of gore or horror.  It’s light fare.  I enjoyed it as much for the Sarasota locales I know as for the Amish culture and characters Clark weaves in.  The Amish have a strong presence in Sarasota’s Pinecraft neighborhood each winter.   

BLOG HISTORY—STATISTICS

About a month before I retired in Summer 2014, I created Jots & Jaunts and wrote my first blog post.  That year, I produced 15 posts total.  In January 2015, I committed to writing a new post each week.   When traveling, especially internationally (those were the days!), I posted a new entry almost every day, thus creating an online journal for myself and others.  

Besides accounts of faraway places, blog topics include books, movies and TV, and the arts scene, as well as food and favorite restaurants.  The past five months have been challenging with no movies, no concerts or plays, and no restaurant dining—lots more content about reading and viewing.  

To date, I have published 396 posts with this one being #397.  That represents an average of 67 postings each year in the more than five years since 2015.  Besides the web, I share my blog on Facebook and with a select group of friends.  I enjoy and appreciate the feedback I get from my readers.  Thanks for your continued interest!

Maine rocks

Note: Header photo of water off Newagen and rock photo ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Pond reflections at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

Maine Time: Other Lives & Gardens

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READING BIOGRAPHY

When it comes to nonfiction, I read more biography than anything else.  I find historical biography often compelling and am regularly drawn into memoirs written by contemporaries.  The past few weeks, I’ve been dipping into two works in this genre.

The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives by Diane Johnson

Novelist Diane Johnson wrote this biography in 1972.  New York Review Books re-issued it this year with a new introduction by critic Vivian Gornick.  Mrs. Meredith, or Mary Ellen Meredith, was novelist George Meredith’s first wife.  She ultimately left Meredith for artist Henry Wallis, with whom she’d been having an affair—a scandalous act for a woman in the 1850’s.  

What makes this biography unconventional is Johnson’s attention to other individuals in Mary Ellen’s life, even those to whom she had only the briefest of connections. Mary Ellen’s journals and quotes from poems are included as well as tidbits of history and lore.  Johnson was fortunate in her search for material to locate a cache of letters from Mary Ellen to Henry secreted in the former home of their son Felix.  

It’s a quirky book and quite delightful, a bit like exploring an old-fashioned desk with pigeonholes filled with seemingly unrelated items.  It was also an inspiration for Phyllis Rose. She’s the author of one of my favorite collective biographies entitled, Parallel Lives:  Five Victorian Marriages, published in 1983.  

Flowers at the botanical garden
The Shadow in the Garden:  A Biographer’s Tale by James Atlas

James Atlas was a publisher and biographer whose works include the life stories of novelist Saul Bellow and poet Delmore Schwartz.   His Schwartz biography was nominated for the National Book Award.  In this work, Atlas talks about his approach to writing a life and, along the way discusses classical biographical works by Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Gaskell and others.  He also shares his conversations and encounters with noted critics of the 20th century such as Elia Kazan, Philip Rahv, and Allen Bloom.  

It’s a chatty book, written in an informal style. I quickly found myself warming to this self-effacing man who was persistent when on the hunt for source material.  I have yet to finish it (have been happily distracted by my granddaughters) but will enjoy continuing his journey.  The book was published in 2017 and, I just learned that Atlas died in 2019 at age 70.

THE MAINE GARDEN

Aluminum sculpture panels by Meg Brown Payson

The website for the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens is mainegardens.org so it seems appropriate to call it the Maine garden.  Despite all the restrictions imposed due to Covid-19, the garden is beautiful and a draw for locals, tourists, and kids.  I was concerned that our granddaughters would be disappointed since the playhouse, story barn, and water pump in the Children’s Garden are not available. They loved the Fairy Village, however, and requested a return visit.  The village was the highlight, but they were also entranced by a waterfall, intrigued by hunting for and counting frogs, curious about the honeybee exhibit, and happy to traipse along the woodland trail noting the occasional sculpture or rock outcropping.  

Cleaning house in the Fairy Village
Waterfall over rock
Gazing at the Sheepscot River
Looking out at Sheepscot River

Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved)