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Maine Time: Trolls & More

July 25, 2021July 25, 2021 JWF Leave a comment

TROLLS IN THE GARDEN

We made the first of this year’s visits to Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens yesterday. It was lovely and mostly sunny. We were impressed with some new annuals and the expansion of beds near the entry bridge. These gardens get better every year!

This year’s highlight is the presence of some gigantic trolls. These wooden sculptures are the work of Danish artist Thomas Dambo. They were built on site over several months by the artist with assistance from garden staff and more than 150 volunteers. Dambo has been working with wood since early childhood, and his trolls are found around the world.

I was told that these five trolls will remain in place until they deteriorate and fall apart, estimated to be about five years, longer if they receive some maintenance. They are impressive works! We tramped around and found two of them, Soren and Birk.

RECENT READING

Baghdad 2002

When the Apricots Bloom by Gina Wilkinson

I must confess to buying this paperback book partly because of its very attractive apricot-colored cover. It’s a novel set in Iraq in 2002 when Sadam Hussein was ruling the country. The author is a former international correspondent who spent a year living under that regime. Her depictions of the city and the environment are picturesque and chilling.

Wilkinson has created three female characters, one based to some extent on her own experiences. Ally Wilson is the wife of the Australian ambassador, Huda is a village girl who has advanced in life to working at the Australian embassy, but also acting as an informant for the government. Rania, born rich and privileged, has fallen on hard times; she and Huda were close friends as children. How these three women come to interact with one another and how Huda and Rania’s concern for their teenage children makes them compatriots is the heart of the novel.

I found the descriptions of daily life fascinating, but noticed a lack of tension in the narrative until about the last third of the book. Nonetheless, it’s worth reading about Bagdad during this brutal time. (~JWFarrington)

VIEWING—BRITISH CRIME

Unforgotten (Season 4, PBS Masterpiece)

Detective Chief Inspector Cassie Stuart and Detective Sunny Kahn are partners in solving cold case crimes. Bodies turn up years later in odd places, in this season, a freezer. This duo must identify the victim and then excavate his or her past to determine how and why the individual died. Was it an accident or murder? And who were the principals in this person’s life and what role did they play in the demise? One incident and one quick decision decades ago reverberated through the lives of four people.

From the haunting and ethereal opening song, “All we do is hide away,” to the detailed interviews with possible suspects, each season is gripping drama. This season is exceptionally so. Nicola Walker as the lead (familiar to some viewers from her role in Last Tango in Halifax) is superb, as is Sanjeev Bhaska as Sunny. This pair like and care for each other as friends as well as colleagues. Their mutual respect is echoed in the respect shown to victims, suspects, and family members. Complex, involved, and compelling—highly recommended!

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

Tidy Tidbits: Tropical Blooms & Exotic Settings

October 17, 2020October 17, 2020 JWF Leave a comment

When you can’t travel to new destinations, then it’s best to enjoy what’s local and watch or read about other times, other places. We did some of both this past week.

ORCHID SHOW—LOCAL COLOR

For their 45^th annual orchid show, Selby Gardens honors founder Marie Selby and celebrates the 100^th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Entitled, Women Breaking the Glasshouse Ceiling, the displays in the conservatory feature purple, white, and gold, the colors most closely associated with the suffrage movement. The orchids are beautiful as always, and this year, some of the arrangements revolve. There’s even a mobile of orchids and cut-outs.

Music from the 1920’s and period furnishings provide an appropriate backdrop. It’s all quite stylish.

The show runs until November 29 and is definitely worth a visit. There’s much more to see besides this exhibit. For a a video preview, click here.

EXOTIC LOCALES—VIEWING AND READING

The White Countess (Amazon Prime)

With a star-studded cast including Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson as the principals, plus Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave, this is Merchant Ivory’s last film. It’s set in Shanghai in 1936, and former American diplomat Todd Jackson is a recluse. Now blind, his life marred by tragedy, he aimlessly whiles away his nights in sleazy clubs. He’s well off, but a displaced family of Russian emigres lives crowded together in the ghetto.

Among them is former countess Sofia, who works as a dancer and prostitute to support her young daughter Katya. Sofia becomes Todd’s muse and inspiration for creating his own elite nightclub. Watching these lost souls cautiously connect before the Japanese invade is a long drawn out process. The overall great cast makes this an enjoyable escape from the everyday. Thanks to my friend Mary for recommending it!

Singapore Sapphire by A. M. Stuart

Set in Singapore in 1910, this is the first in a series of mysteries featuring Harriet Gordon, a young widow and former suffragette, and Inspector Robert Curran. Harriet is a relatively recent arrival in Singapore. She volunteers at the English-style boys’ school headed up by her brother and takes on freelance typing jobs.

When Harriet goes to retrieve her typewriter from a recent client, Sir Oswald Newbold, she finds him dead and his study ransacked. Curran, a former military policeman and cricket star, is assigned with his team to find the killer. Other suspicious deaths and disappearances follow and Harriet, both curious and restless, gets involved too. Add into the mix, art and artifacts, ruby mines, and gem dealers and you have an engaging, even exciting, plot. (~JWFarrington)

Note: Photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Tidy Tidbits: Mostly Nature

September 20, 2020September 20, 2020 JWF Leave a comment

AN INCREDIBLE LIFE, A HUGE LOSS

RBG hung on for a very long time through multiple bouts of cancer. What a trouper she was and what a magnificent justice and advocate for equal rights! Such an impressive woman. Thank you, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for your powerful intellect, your undiminished passion, and for all you achieved. You will be missed.

The Chief Penguin and I had the distinct privilege and pleasure of hearing Justice Ginsburg speak in Aspen a few years ago, and it was both: a privilege and a pleasure.

A RESTORATIVE

Selby Gardens in Sarasota is a favorite place of ours and we often take family and visiting friends there. Since Covid, we had not returned for a long while, but today made a brief visit. I wanted to see the glass art on display and was very ready for a change of scene.

Purple glass vase — Artist is Duncan McClellan

Yellow green large vase etched in brown — *Green Farm* by Duncan McClellan

We arrived about ten minutes before opening and joined three other masked couples ahead of us in line. The experience was wonderful. Very few people, lots of plants in bloom (can’t recall ever coming in September), and I saw the glass on the exhibit’s last day.

It was overcast with a light breeze and not at all hot. We meandered through the conservatory and then outside among the plants, claiming a bench to take in this view of the bay. I left feeling relaxed and rejuvenated. For a time, life seemed normal.

Looking out at Sarasota Bay toward Lido Key — Sarasota Bay from Selby Gardens

NATURE ON SCREEN

Islands of Wonder: Madagascar (PBS)

This is part of a series on unique islands around the world. The listing caught my eye because the Chief Penguin and I spent three weeks in Madagascar in 2009 when we worked at the California Academy of Sciences. The Academy had several research projects underway there, and our fellow travelers were the chief botany curator, a trustee, their wives, and a local guide. We flew in and out of the capital city airport in Antananarivo, informally known as “Tana,” and then traveled by van to rainforests, desert, and mountains.

Madagascar, east of mainland Africa, is the oldest island on earth. Due to its isolated location, it has an astounding number of species found only there. Perhaps best known are the many varieties of lemurs, and they feature extensively in this visually stunning show. From ring-tailed ones to dancing sifakas, one learns how lemurs have adapted to challenging habitats. Add to that unusual lizards, strange birds, and the cute, hedgehog-like tenrec.

Madagascar’s topography is also awe-inspiring from its dense rainforests on the east to the spiny desert in the west to the needle-sharp limestone Tsingy mountains. For anyone interested in nature and biodiversity, this is a fascinating introduction to a very special place!

Note: Photos by JWFarrington. Header photo is the bay and Sarasota skyline.

Pond reflections at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

Maine Time: Other Lives & Gardens

August 23, 2020August 23, 2020 JWF Leave a comment

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.

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 20^th 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.

Category: Gardens

Maine Time: Trolls & More

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