Reading and Roaming

Tidy Tidbits: Books & Music

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: Culture Notes

RECENT READING: Of Early Medicine and Botanical Gardens

American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic by Victoria Johnson.

David Hosack was a citizen of the world, a man with wide ranging interests and connections who deserves to be better known. A physician by training, he was also a botanist who linked his interest in plants with their potential uses in medicine. He corresponded widely with the great naturalists abroad, Alexander von Humboldt and Sir Joseph Banks among them, and shared and traded plants and seeds. He knew both Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr well, was the doctor at the famous duel, and treated and saved Burr’s young son. Hosack was also friendly with Thomas Jefferson, DeWitt Clinton, the Bartram brothers of Philadelphia, and also fellow doctor, Benjamin Rush, who was a mentor and surrogate father to him.

Hosack studied medicine in Philadelphia and abroad, had a private practice as well as tending patients at several hospitals and teaching at Columbia and the College of Physicians and Surgeons. At the same time, he created his own teaching garden, Elgin, which he labored long and hard over physically and financially. Over the years, he made numerous attempts to get it support or adoption by the State of New York or Columbia University. Alas, it was never granted enough funds or the means to flourish and was neglected and stripped of its plants by later “stewards.”

Johnson’s book is a lively paean to the accomplishments and talents of this energetic man. Hosack undoubtedly had faults, but Johnson chooses to focus on the civic role he played in creating awareness of the importance of plants to healing and on the notable societies and institutions he helped found and support. Highly recommended. (~JWFarrington)

SARASOTA CULTURAL SCENE

Lecture by James Comey

Sarasota’s Town Hall Lecture Series is the brainchild of the Ringling College Library Association, and a notable series it is. Each year, the association lands six well known individuals who command top fees for giving two presentations and meeting with students over lunch. Last year we had the pleasure of hearing John Brennan, former director of the CIA. This time it was James Comey, former director of the FBI, and probably better known than Brennan due to his very public firing in May 2017.

I’ve read Comey’s book about loyalty and leadership and was keen to hear him. And he delivered—an engaging and articulate talk about his definition of the traits of an effective leader peppered with humorous anecdotes about his height (six foot eight) and his life as an unemployed celebrity. He did occasionally veer toward sanctimoniousness, but not too badly. One noteworthy takeaway was his comparison based on the several presidents he’s worked for (of both parties) of who was the absolute best listener and who the worst. No surprise, not only was Obama the best, but he worked to make the setting as comfortable as possible for the other person given the gap between their positions. Worst was the current president who interrupted repeatedly and always sat behind his big wooden desk.

There are several more Town Hall speakers yet to come, but I’m especially looking forward to former ambassador Caroline Kennedy.

Asolo Theater

In these blogs, I have often touted the high caliber of theater we enjoy in this region. After seeing the Asolo company’s production facilities, I’m even more impressed. Earlier this week, we were treated to a tour of the Koski Production Center including the huge warehouse where all the stage sets are fabricated. Asolo makes all its own sets and there is a lot of craft work by carpenters, electricians, scene painters and the like. Nothing is purchased or imported.

We saw the revolving set for the upcoming play, Noises Off, and got a look at the shelves and stacks of stage props (chairs, sofas, chandeliers and more) as well as racks and racks of costumes. Asolo has even been commissioned to design sets for one or more cruise lines. An added treat of the morning was hearing from actress Peggy Roeder whom we’ve seen and enjoyed in a number of its productions.

Note: Photos by JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Cultural Cuba: History, Art & Dance

WED. JAN. 30

Today, our last full day, was packed with economics, history, visual art and dance. Lourdes, dean of economics at the University of Havana, was our morning speaker here at the hotel. Like all the other individuals who have shared their insights with us, she was both spirited and informative. The Cubans we’ve encountered up close have been passionate about their work, candid about conditions in the country, and yet able to present them with a touch of humor.

From her, we gained a better understanding of how wealth, or more often the lack of it, is distributed in Cuba and how rich Cubans rely upon their relatives living in the U.S. or abroad to send them money or goods. For example, salaries for academics are low given their education, and one might make as little as 22 pesos a month. We all wished we’d had more time with her to ask more questions about the U.S. embargo on goods and about her own story.

Hall of Mirrors under renovation like much of the museum

After our economics lesson, we went to the Museo de la Revolucion. This is Cuba’s version of the events leading up to Fidel Castro’s takeover and what followed including the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, and Cuba’s engagements with Russia and the rest of the world through the 1980’s. Outside the building, several military planes and vehicles are on display including, behind glass, the yacht Fidel Castro and 81 others came in from Mexico in 1956 to launch the Revolution.

Lunch at Ivan Justo was across the street from the museum and upstairs (as many restaurants are) and began with the usual mojito. (I think it must be the Cuban national drink since they have appeared at every lunch but one and several dinners!)

Today, everything was served family style. An assortment of appetizers (shrimp ceviche, hummus, fried taro sticks), followed by platters of luscious lamb stew, chicken thighs, and grilled fish plus white rice and black beans. Dessert was a dish of rice pudding. Normally, I am not a fan of puddings, but this was quite good with the sprinkle of cinnamon on top.

After lunch, we walked half a block to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana. There our delightful guide, Aylet Ojeda, a student who gives tours as payback for her free university tuition, highlighted the work of Cuban artists from 1929 through the 1990’s. She shared how early artists were heavily influenced by famous artists from abroad and then over time created paintings that were more reflective of Cuban society and more political in nature. The header photo is by a Cuban artist.

Music and dance are important elements of Cuban culture, and we had the treat of a short performance by Habana Compas Dance, a professional troupe of female dancers. Their dance incorporates aspects of Afro-Cuban music as well as flamenco dance steps from Spain. They study five days a week and learn to play several types of drums as well as other percussion instruments such as the clava, washboard gourd, and castanets. The troupe is unique in having incorporated small side chairs into their routines as yet another percussion instrument. Bursting with energy and enthusiasm, their short program was a welcome shot of adrenaline.

This was the day that never ended. After a brief break at the hotel, we went out again, this time to a dance studio to learn more about the steps that inform Cuban ballroom dancing. Initially two pairs of dancers did an elegant dance, then the dances got more animated and erotic as more couples joined the floor.

Next was a short salsa demo, and then the dancers grabbed our hands (no weaseling out here) and we ladies lined up behind the lead instructor and the men behind one of the male dancers. With great patience, the instructor demonstrated the basic steps, then they were put to music, and we got a partner. Some of us excelled while others got by passably. It was a fun experience!

Then, on to our farewell dinner at a glass-walled contemporary restaurant, OtraManera, that would have been at home in La Jolla. We had a choice of drinks (I went for the house white wine) and a look at the menu to choose what we wished to eat beyond the shared appetizers. Appetizers included croquettes, ceviche, and a lovely avocado and tomato concasse.

The Chief Penguin ordered the grilled red snapper and I had the Chinese style noodles with pork tenderloin graced with a few cherry tomatoes and broccoli florets. Also popular with our group were several of the salads, one with green papaya, and the lamb entree. It was a lovely meal in a lovely setting, ending with Alfredo providing a summary of what we’d done over the past five days. He was complimentary about our group and said we were a group he would be sorry to see leave.

Tomorrow we all go our separate ways. I’ve made a new friend or two, and my head is filled with images of art and architecture in this “city of columns.” I was charmed by the individuals with whom we conversed. I am also armed with a better understanding of Cuba’s history and its relations with the U.S. along with the challenges and opportunities this society faces. For sure, I’ll be sharing the magic and delight of this trip with my friends at home—it’s hard to let go! Thank you, Marlon and Alfredo.

Cultural Cuba: Photo Highlights

Havana and the Vinales Valley offered a feast of images for the photographer. I took more photos than I could possibly share in my daily blog posts so here are a few more.