Category: TV

Tidy Tidbits: Bach, Beethoven & Clementine

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READING

And After the Fire by Lauren Belfer.  Belfer is one of my favorite novelists.  I had been thinking about her and wondering if she had published anything recently when I happened upon her new novel at Three Lives in New York.  This historical novel deals with music, specifically a possible missing cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, and the actions taken in the name of religion, be it Jewish, Catholic or other.  Going back and forth in time between New York in the present, Germany in 1945, and the Berlin of Sara Levy from 1776 to the1851, it is a tale of mystery and discovery and prejudice.

Sara Levy is a harpsichord student of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Johann’s son, and a real person.  The gift of a musical score from Wilhelm to his favored student Sara and what becomes of it after her death is a trail that Susanna Kessler, a young foundation executive, must unravel after the sudden death of her Uncle Henry who was a soldier in WWII.  Becoming entwined in the search to validate the score are competing Bach scholars, a disillusioned minister, and Susanna’s own family.  I found this a most engaging novel and quickly raced through it.  The characters, both real and imagined, are well drawn and the book is rich with details of academic politics, foundation business, library research, and, of course, Bach’s music.

About a week after I bought the novel, I was surprised to see an article about Belfer and her husband in the Arts & Leisure section of the Sunday NYT under the heading, Classical, and entitled, “A Literary Couple Grapple with Bach and His God.”  It turns out her husband is a musicologist and they both published books in May—hers this novel and his a book of scholarly essays, Bach & God.  The article is an interview with them.

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Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill by Sonia Purnell.  I’m well into this fascinating book.  It’s significant and surprising that until now, other than an account of her life by her daughter Mary, there has been no other biography of this complex, strong, and accomplished woman.  She was smart and very intuitive about people, but devoted her life to Winston and to furthering his career, sometimes to the detriment of her health and certainly to the dismay of her children.  She was about the only person who could and would stand up to Winston’s forceful personality and without her, his ultimate success in government is questionable.  But she needed to escape him periodically and she would go away for several months at a time without seeing him or their five children.  In public and even with close friends, she came across as always composed and often remote, but she also had a temper and could explode over a small detail.  Theirs was a fractious and complicated marriage with more time spent apart than together, resulting in a legacy of letters and notes.

WATCHING

While I wait for the next season of my Australian series, I’m deep into U.S. politics with the absorbing and very well crafted, Madam Secretary.  Tea Leoni as Secretary Elizabeth McCloud is smart, effective, beautiful and not above the occasional use of spy craft.  With background as a CIA analyst and then a professor, she brings an unusual resume to the job.  Her husband Henry is a noted religion scholar and professor who also possesses intelligence experience.  Episodes about crises in various parts of the world and diplomatic kerfuffles echo real life events of the past few years.  Adding to the enjoyment of the series is the portrayal of the McCords’ three children, especially their older daughter Stevie, a college dropout who is learning about the harsh realities of the job scene, and Elizabeth’s lively office staff.  I thought there was only one season, but just learned that it continues on prime time TV.

LISTENING

It’s June in Sarasota and that means the Sarasota Music Festival is in full swing along with the restaurant scene’s Savor Sarasota.  Last week we went to three concerts, all enjoyable, but the best one by far was the Saturday night symphony concert.  The orchestra was comprised of summer music students and the program included a simply  marvelous performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major by Noah Bendix-Balgley.  Bendix-Balgley is a former festival student of about a decade ago and joined the faculty in 2013.  In 2014, he was named the 1st Concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic.  His is a career to follow!

 

Tidy Tidbits: A Melange

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WILDLIFE

One of the pleasures of living on the coast overlooking the water is having nature all around us.  Not only is it  peaceful, but I love seeing the variety of birds that live or find their way here:  Great Egrets, White Ibis, scaups and other ducks, wood storks, herons of several hues, white pelicans, turkey vultures, swifts, and the occasional spoonbill.

Great White Egrets
Great White Egrets
Ibis
Ibis
Wood stork
Wood stork

I knew less about the inhabitants of  the waters of northern Sarasota Bay until we were treated to an excellent presentation on the flora and fauna of this estuary.  Not only do we have red, black and white mangroves lining the shore, but these brackish waters (I always thought it was salt water, but no, it’s a mix of river water and sea water) are home to snook, tarpon and red drum fish and lots of horseshoe crabs.  You can also spot sting rays, sea turtles, and the occasional Bonnet Head Shark.

Horseshoe Crab Remains
Horseshoe Crab Remains

IMG_8170I haven’t always been a nature lover, but working in a science museum that focused on the natural world, made me much more aware of and interested in the life around me.  The  other week, much to my surprise, I happened upon an armadillo—out on a bright sunshiny morning!  As I got closer, it quickly scurried into the bush.

 

 

 

 

CULTURE NOTES

The Sarasota Orchestra racked up another triumph last evening in a sold out concert featuring Israeli violinist Guy Braunstein in an energetic performance of Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major which includes a haunting oboe solo in the second movement.  After intermission, the orchestra gave a rousing rendition of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8.  Under Anu Tali’s baton, the orchestra continues to engage and please its patrons and definitely deserves a concert hall of its own.  We hope that Sarasota and its community leaders will find the wherewithal to make this happen.

The Verdi Cycle has come to an end.  And we ended this year’s Sarasota Opera season with the seldom performed and, we believe never recorded on DVD, performance of The Battle of Legnano.  The plot of this early Verdi opera is somewhat cobbled together and seems a bit silly at times, but, if nothing else, you come away with a sense of fervent patriotism, Viva Italia!  As always, the sets were impressive and there was some wonderful singing.

SMALL SCREEN

Given all that I had read and heard (including a friend’s recommendation) about the Netflix series, Orange is the New Black, I decided to give it a try.  I had just completed the 66th and last episode of Gran Hotel, the Spanish series set in 1906, that I’ve been living with for several months.  I got so I was hearing the voices of Dona Teresa, Julio, Javier, Dona Angela, and Alicia echoing in my head and could anticipate every note and swell of the theme music.  It was soap operaish; there were murders and murderers and not everyone was punished; and secrets and coincidences beyond belief, but I’ll miss it!

To be fair, I watched two full episodes of “Orange.”  It is raw, brutal, graphic, and probably somewhat true-to-life in its portrayal of the prison environment as experienced by women.  I found I was more drawn to Piper Chapman’s back story—how this privileged young white woman ended up doing time—and to that of Red, the tough head cook who aspired to be someone of import.  Despite this, it won’t keep me on the treadmill so I’ll be looking for another option.

LUNCHTIME

After hearing a fast-paced presentation on the U. S. military budget, our brains scrambling to keep up with the speaker, we had worked up an appetite.  Lunch at Pho Cali was delicious!  I ordered the rice noodle bowl with chicken.  It brought back warm memories (spicy and nostalgic) of the many days I bought this same Vietnamese dish from the food truck at Penn that was right outside my office window.  Lots of choices here—everything from stir fried chicken or tofu with broccoli or other vegetables to the very spicy lemongrass and shrimp soup that the Chief Penguin sighed over.  We’ll go back for sure.

All photos copyright JWFarrington

Tidy Tidbits: Mothers & Meals

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NOVEL PAIRING

The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee

I really enjoyed Lee’s first novel, The Piano Teacher, and so approached her new one with enthusiasm.  It too is wonderful, but in a different way.  Set in the present rather than the past, it details the daily lives over the course of a year of three expatriate women living in Hong Kong.  Like Anne Beattie, whose own stories delineate the fine structure of daily life, Lee knows this turf and her novel is rich with references to specific shops, clubs, and neighborhoods.  Two of these women are acquainted at the start (Mercy had worked for Margaret), but by the end all three, Mercy, Margaret, and Hilary, have intersected.

It is a novel mostly about motherhood—the angst of wanting a child, the tentativeness of trying out a child on loan, and the pain of losing a child coupled with, in Margaret’s case, the joys of cuddling and cosseting one’s existing children.  But it’s also a depiction of being an outsider in a culture, even if, like Mercy, you are half Asian.  I felt that Lee kept the reader at a distance from her characters; you knew their lives and habits, but you didn’t inhabit them.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Like Lee, Celeste Ng is a mother as well as a writer.  This first novel, winner of several awards, is a poignant story about a mixed race family in Ohio in the late 1970’s.  Husband James is Chinese American and wife Marilyn, a Caucasian from Virginia.  James and their three children stick out in small town Middlewood and each must deal with being singled out and looking different.  Sixteen year old Lydia bears the heavy weight of unrealistic parental expectations and when she goes missing, the family implodes.  It’s a book that makes one reflect on the sometimes unspoken demands we place on our children to their detriment.  Sobering and yet believable.  Marilyn is something of a Tiger mother.

SARASOTA SAMPLER

Expanding our local dining forays, but, we hope, not our waistlines, we tried two new restaurants this past week.

Yume in downtown Sarasota is a perfect choice for a Japanese lunch.  Among the four of us, we enjoyed several lunch specials:   chicken teriyaki and the eel, accompanied by rice and stir fried vegetables plus a small green salad or miso soup, and the spicy tuna roll with a side of seaweed salad.  Prices are very reasonable and the restaurant was not crowded.  Their longer menu also includes some Thai dishes.

Mozaic.  This is one of Sarasota’s fine dining restaurants (read a bit more expensive) and we ate here before the opera.  The menu is more creative than some other places, and we were pleased with what we ordered.  I thought the sautéed shrimp over lemon risotto was very tasty, and my spouse loved the crab cake salad and his side of lamb merguez sausage.

SMALL SCREEN SCRIBBLES

Mercy Street.  So far, I’d give this series a B, maybe a B+, but not an A.  It’s PBS’s first attempt at this kind of historical series and they just haven’t done it like the Brits do.  I’ve now watched the first three episodes.

Downton Abbey.  I’m mourning the end of Downton Abbey and the finale is still 24 hours away! I thought last week’s episode was one of the best and was particularly struck by the scene between Mary and her grandmother.  The dowager duchess opines about love and its importance in one’s life and then gives her granddaughter a hug.  Hugs are seldom seen between these folks, and I found this one touching and somehow very right.

Tidy Tidbits: Inside & Out

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BOOK OF THE WEEK

Mary McGrory:  The First Queen of Journalism by John Norris.

Although this is a biography, it is perhaps even more a rollicking review of presidential campaigns and Congressional politics from the McCarthy hearings through the Bush eras, all as viewed from the perspective of columnist Mary McGrory and her colleagues.  Brash, yet elegant, Mary McGrory was a wielder of words and winsome charm.  She contrived to never have to carry her own luggage and was both chummy with and critical of presidential and politician friends from Jack and Bobby Kennedy to Gene McCarthy and Mario Cuomo.  Her column in the Washington Star ran for almost thirty years and when that newspaper folded, she joined the Washington Post, but never found its culture as pleasing as the warm, family-like atmosphere at the Star.  A pioneer in the field, her talent and dedication smoothed the way for other women columnists like today’s Maureen Dowd and Gail Collins.

ART WALK

Having house guests can be an incentive to visit a new place.  With my sister and brother-in-law from North Carolina, we took advantage of the Art Walk at the Ringling College of Art and Design.   This small private school is situated on the northern edge of Sarasota, and its charming campus, tucked just off Tamiami Trail, is a mix of attractive Spanish architecture and more contemporary buildings.  For this event, six of the campus’ galleries were open and free to the public.  Included were a display of pieces from the Basch Collection of art glass, a tour of the letterpress lab, and the opening reception for an exhibition of works by alumnus Amer Kobaslija.  Faculty were also on hand to try to entice us to sign up for their continuing education courses, everything from creative writing to zentangle (a new structured way to create art) to metal working, to publishing interactive books online.  The morning downpour was over, the weather had cleared and walking around this snug campus was a different way to spend the late afternoon.

ON THE SMALL SCREEN

Thanks to the Chief Penguin, my treadmill workouts are now enhanced by watching the Spanish drama, Gran Hotel, available on streaming Netflix.  Called the Spanish “Downton Abbey,” and set in 1906, it is the story of the Alarcon family who own and run an elegant country hotel.  The matriarch, Dona Teresa, rules with an iron will and is not averse to employing chicanery, secrets, and lies to get her way.  Add in her beautiful daughter Alicia, a wayward son (Javier), the unexplained disappearance of one of the maids (Cristina), a waiter (Andres) who is the son of the head housekeeper, and the arrival of a young man (Julio) seeking answers about Cristina’s disappearance, and you have the makings of an entertaining and diverting stew.  Full of murders, mysterious letters, and implausible coincidences, it keeps getting better and better.  There are three seasons and I’m now into season 2 or about halfway through the 30+ episodes.  It is subtitled, but I don’t find that at all a problem, even while striding along on the treadmill!

 

Header Photo: Morning on Manatee Beach (copyright JWFarrington)