Despite the restrictions of the pandemic, yesterday’s funeral for Prince Philip at Windsor Castle in St. George’s Chapel was replete with majesty and the military. Outside, some 800 members of various branches of the military paraded, saluted, and honored the steadfast Duke of Edinburgh. Queen Elizabeth entered the chapel alone ahead of the royal procession. Swathed in black and masked, she was diminutive in sadness.
The royal procession into the chapel was small. In a break from tradition, Princess Anne was the only woman, joining her three brothers, nephews William and Harry, and her son Peter. The dean of the chapel and the archbishop of Canterbury read scripture and led prayers, a choir of four lent their robust voices to lovely music, while bagpipes and bugles sounded the final notes. It was a beautifully simple service and a fitting tribute to a man who served and loved country, queen and consort for 73 years.
ENTERTAINMENT AND ENLIGHTENMENT
Camelot(streaming from Asolo Rep)
Britney Coleman as Guenevere (broadwayworld.com)
Recently, I was dismayed to learn that all the performances of the outdoor production of Camelotwere sold out. Intrigued by the idea of a concert version of this famous musical, I bought streaming access for $25. The Chief Penguin and I were completely captivated.
In true Asolo style, not only were the acting and singing marvelous and fun, but the staging was so creative. Performing literally on the building’s steps and landing, the small cast carried off creative choreography backed by clever changing backdrops. It was as good as it would have been had we been there in person. Maybe even better, since we saw everything close up!
Colson Whitehead in Conversation
(ew.com)
Thanks to my friend Sue, several of us were able to view a presentation by author Colson Whitehead, part of a series by Guildford College. In a soliloquy with nary a breath taken, Whitehead unspooled the thread of his literary career: innovative approaches to fiction, multiple genres, and back-to-back Pulitzers Prizes for his two latest novels. The novels are The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys. It was an engaging program as he detailed where he gets his ideas and how he prepared to write The Nickel Boys.
My local book group will bediscussing The Nickel Boys next week. It’s a chilling piece of historical fiction based on a brutal reform school in the Florida Panhandle, Dozier School for Boys. It abused and tortured many boys and yet existed for more than a hundred years.
Continuing my al fresco dining, a friend and I had lunch the other day at Dry Dock on Longboat Key. This popular restaurant has a lovely location on Sarasota Bay with spacious patio seating. The menu has choices of seafood, salads, and sandwiches. along with pasta with a variety of sauces. We enjoyed our rather conventional choices: a BLT and the chicken and mozzarella sandwich on focaccia. The accompanying cole slaw was also very good. If you plan to go, do make a reservation, unless you don’t mind waiting to be seated!
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, 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)
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.
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.
I feel like I’ve been living with Stanley Tucci the past two weeks, what with watching his entire Searching for Italy series and now experiencing him and Colin Firth in Supernova. It’s an intensely moving and sensitively drawn story of a gay couple dealing with dementia. Sam is an English pianist and Tusker is an American novelist. Tusker is in the later stages of Alzheimer’s, and they have embarked on a road trip through the English Lake District. Tusker is losing his ability to recall words and to perform certain tasks and has become more dependent on Sam.
They are a very loving couple who also tease and bicker with each other. Neither really wants to let go or to be alone. But Tusker feels he’s losing control of his life and that brings him and them to a punctuation point. The dialogue between them rings true to life, and the interactions with Sam’s sister Lily, her family, and friends are believable and not over played.
Tucci and Firth, longtime friends in real life, are both superb. Together, they render an emotionally powerful experience. The soundtrack, ranging from popular songs from the 70’s to a range of classical music, adds additional depth. The film begins with a slow arc, setting the scene with stunning landscape and showing Sam and Tusker’s daily life. Simply excellent and should have been nominated for an Oscar!
This is one of the Oscar nominees for Best Picture and deservedly so. Based on a play, it focuses mainly on Anthony Hopkins, the father, and Olivia Colman as his daughter Anne. The character, also Anthony, is 80 and suffering from Alzheimer’s. He’s canny and sometimes funny, but also defiantly definite about wanting to live on his own. Simultaneously, he sometimes acknowledges that he’s confused, and he begins not to recognize Anne. She tries to offer assistance but realizes she can’t give him all that he needs. Time shifts in the film, and you feel you are seeing the same scene played several ways depending on whose reality it is—yours or Anthony’s. A touching film that has painful moments. Hopkins and Colman are excellent, and Rufus Sewell plays Anne’s mostly patient spouse Paul.
Female reporter with Tolontan (rogersmovienation.com)
This documentary, which grew out of a disastrous 2015 fire at a club in Bucharest called Collectiv, is a heavy-hitting study of malfeasance and corruption. When experts and others began to wonder why so many young burn survivors died in the hospital, a sports tabloid set out to investigate. Reporter and editor Catalin Tolontan delved deeply into the tragedy and uncovered tainted disinfectants. They were just the first evidence of systemic problems in hospitals across Romania.
Tolontan and his team are heroes and so became Vlad Voiculescu, the newly appointed minister of health. It’s a devasting story and a compelling one which ends with hints of hope for the future. It’s a nominee for Best Documentary feature film. Highly recommended!
A HEPBURN CLASSIC
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Amazon Prime)
(bookriot.com)
Somehow over the years I missed seeing this classic 1961 film starring Audrey Hepburn. I’ve watched part of a recent documentary about Hepburn entitled Audrey, and this prompted me to see Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Hepburn is elegant and beautiful in timeless dresses and gowns by Givenchy. As high-class call girl Holly Golighty, she alternates sophistication with the innocence of an ingenue.
The movie is dated, and the casting of Mickey Rooney as a bumbling Japanese man is particularly offensive. Allowing for that, it’s still an award-winning movie with performances by George Peppard as writer Paul Varjak (who resembles Holly’s brother Fred), Paul’s patron Patricia Neal, and a handsome young Buddy Ebsen.
CULINARY CORNER
Chateau 13 in downtown Bradenton offers some of the most sophisticated and creative food in the region. We had dined here once before the pandemic and were delighted that it survived. As is our wont these days, we had a table with friends outside on the sidewalk. The street was mostly quiet, so we weren’t bothered by traffic.
The menu consists of cheese and charcuterie sharing plates, small appetizer bites, fries with a range of toppings, several salads, and entrees. We sampled several cheeses and also frites with black truffles and Parmesan. For the main event, we ordered the bechamel filled croquettes, shrimp Pernod, braised octopus, coq au vin, and the robust Catalan seafood stew. Other entrees include mussels several ways, duck breast, salmon, and a chef’s prix fixe menu. My only quibble was with the crushed croutons on the French Caesar salad. I would have them preferred them whole, but that’s minor for a delicious and different meal!
The book’s subtitle: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine, aptly captures the mission of Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell. Born in Bristol, England, into a large family, Elizabeth and Emily emigrated to Cincinnati when they were just eleven and six. Although not wealthy, their parents prized education and, Elizabeth from an early age thought herself destined for greatness of some sort. She believed herself superior to most everyone and especially to other women.
(hhnmag.com)
Rejected by several medical schools, she ultimately was the lone female student at Geneva Medical College in upstate New York. In 1849, she became the first woman in the U.S. to become an M.D. Elizabeth put in her time observing and treating patients in Edinburgh and Paris, but she much preferred writing and teaching. Later she founded and directed the first clinic and hospital in New York solely for women and children. This was long before the germ theory of disease was put forth.
Elizabeth was forceful, and she prevailed on Emily to pursue her medical degree and then join her. For years, Emily followed in Elizabeth’s wake in a subordinate position until finally she tired of it. These women doctors were dedicated to medicine in their separate ways and yet remained supportive of each other’s efforts. Of the two, Emily was the more compassionate and caring practicing doctor.
A fascinating account of the obstacles they overcame in their intertwined careers, it’s also a detailed study of complex sibling relationships. Neither woman ever married.
Set in the early 1900’s, this 6-part Austrian crime series pairs Detective Oskar Rheinhardt with Max Liebermann, a young doctor in training. Oskar was happiest working alone and less than enthusiastic when Dr. Liebermann came along to observe a case. Max is studying to be a psychiatrist. An admirer of Freud and his methods, Max thinks about the criminal mind and what motivates a murder. As Max becomes more involved, Oskar begins to appreciate his insights and the two form an unlikely team.
The murder scenes are gruesome ones, graphic and appropriately bloody, and “viewer discretion is advised.” I found the first episode grim and dark but got more engaged as Oskar and Max become partners. Along the way, we get to know Max’s family and his fiancée and learn a bit more about Oskar’s personal life. There are plans for a second season and we’ll be there!
I thought Stanley Tucci was marvelous in the film, Julie and Julia, as Paul Child alongside Meryl Streep. That was at least ten years ago, and Tucci is still charming and sexy with a lovely deep voice. Here he brings his passion for food to the fore introducing viewers to the tastes, smells, and sights of culinary Italy. There are six episodes in this first season, and you don’t need to watch them in order.
We began with Campania (think Naples and pizza) and then moved on to Tuscany (steak Florentine and panzanella). The other evening it was on to Bologna, source of delectable prosciutto, nutty Parmesan, and delicate tortellini. Stanley is a warm and relaxed guide who provides snippets of history and then meets up with professors, farmers, producers, and chefs. Everywhere he goes, he tastes and exclaims and tastes some more.
If you are an Italianophile, you’ll appreciate anew the variety and richness of the country’s cuisine and its passionate citizens. If you are a foodie, it’s essential viewing! Just be sure you eat before you watch.
CULINARY CORNER
Cottonmouth Southern Soul Kitchen
(heraldtribune.com)
Located in Bradenton’s Village of the Arts, this newish restaurant has a spacious back patio and boasts tasty southern cuisine. We went with friends mid-week and were the only outside diners for most of our meal. Our waitress was friendly and helpful as we decided on our orders.
The fried green tomatoes were perfect. The fried calamari Thai style was an interesting attempt but a bit lacking. The ribs and the meatloaf burger (adorned with tater tots) were very good very large portions. The crab cake and shrimp and cheese grits entrées also got high marks. A selection of wines by the glass and beers including original Pabst Blue Ribbon rounded out the meal. If you like live music, Tuesday and Saturday are the nights, and on Sundays they offer a hillbilly/ gospel brunch. We might try the latter—just for the experience!
Note: Photo of a gallery in Village of the Arts courtesy of 83degreesmedia.com.
