Category: TV

Tidy Tidbits: Culture Notes

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Not the Season But

You soon learn when you move here, that everyone refers to “the season.” The season runs from after Christmas through April and perhaps into May. It’s when the snowbirds fly south, all of the part-time residents are back, and the cultural season is in full swing. That said, although the season has not yet arrived, the pace has picked up, and there is a seemingly endless parade of local festivals and fairs, everything from chalk in Venice to blues in Bradenton. Recently, we enjoyed our first Sarasota Orchestra concert for 2015-16, the Sarasota Opera’s very fine production of “La Boheme” and the South Florida Museum’s annual Snooty Gala. Pianist Marc Andre Hamelin and the orchestra presented a memorable performance of Beethoven’s “Emperor” concerto along with two pieces by Shostakovich. An upcoming orchestra concert will feature violinist Leila Josefowicz whom we got to know during her years of study at the Curtis Institute.

On the Small Screen

These two TV series on PBS have ended or almost so, but I do think they are worth mentioning. In “Home Fires,” the focus is on the women in a small English town and their desire to help the war effort, but also on the rivalry for leadership of the Women’s Institute. Absorbing and convincing, it will immerse you in the daily lives of the villagers as tensions develop over the impending war.

The characters are many, the social and political alliances tangled and complex, and the accents sometimes thick, but “Indian Summers” is worth one’s time. Set in the early 1930’s at a summer retreat in the Himalayas, it depicts the waning power of the ruling British Colonials and the rising protest of the native classes. Both series are available on DVD.

On the Page

Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.

Some of you may recall the stir that was caused when Ms. Clark died at age 104 in 2011, and it was discovered that she owned several sumptuous properties preserved, but not lived in for decades.  They included a chateau style house in Connecticut purchased as a safe house, but never furnished and never visited. Raised in luxury in elegant surroundings on Fifth Avenue, Huguette Clark ended up living the last twenty years in a small, spare hospital room.

While occasionally reading like a sales catalog of fancy goods and art, this is both a lively family history (the first quarter details her father’s creation of a business empire the equal of the Rockefellers and his colorful, questionable career as a U.S. senator) and a fascinating account of this eccentric, strange, and yet generous woman.  Most of the people who worked for her or advised her never met her and dealt with her through letters or phone calls or via the few trusted individuals in her employ. She purchased dolls and art for her own enjoyment while giving away millions of dollars to staff and friends. Dedman’s co-author is Ms. Clark’s grandson and the inclusion of his phone conversations with Huguette shows a more personal side to this very private, secretive woman.

 

Tidy Tidbits: Sea Creatures & Wars

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SHARKS AND SEAHORSES

This week we spent a fascinating morning at the Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium.  There is an attractive color brochure with a map. And blue-shirted volunteers were all around and engaged with visitors, particularly at the Contact Cove where you can do a two-finger touch of sea stars and other animals.  Also noteworthy, I thought were the one-page glossary handouts of fish and invertebrate names in three different languages:  French, German, and Spanish, designed for foreign visitors.

ContactCoveExhibits are both indoors and outside and feature deep sea fish as well as coast dwellers.  Scientists here focus much of their research on white sharks and seahorses.  We saw an impressive shark tank where there are live shark training demonstrations several times a week and also made note of the several kinds of seahorses in the regular exhibits and near the lab.  What looked to be hundreds of teeny tiny seahorses born several weeks ago were clustered around a leaf stalk in one tank. and another tank had other baby seahorses farther along in their development.  They are amazing creatures who can camouflage themselves to blend into their particular sea environment.

 

JellyfishI was particularly drawn to the tanks of jellyfish and the sea nettles (the latter I’d never seen before).  I find watching jellyfish float and drift in the currents to be very soothing, almost therapeutic.  The mangrove display outside emphasized the critical role this tree-like shrub plays in reducing shore erosion and providing safe havens for various creatures.  We will definitely make a return visit, most likely with our granddaughter in tow!

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT I’M WATCHING 

I’m really impressed with the offerings on PBS this summer.  Not only is there the new version of Poldark, but Last Tango in Halifax is back for a third season of the trials and tribulations of Celia and Alan and their tangled up families.  One aspect of this program I like and appreciate is that there is a lot of conversation in it, but there are silences too, and it all feels more like real life than some television dramas. Also there are moments of humor.

Added to this line-up on Sunday evenings (here you can watch from 8:00 until 11:00 pm if you’re so inclined; we record everything) is The Crimson Field, a raw and graphic drama set at a battlefield hospital in Boulogne, France in 1915.  The story focuses on three new volunteer nurses and their interactions with the nursing supervisors, doctors and patients.  And for fans of Downton Abbey, watch for Kevin Doyle (aka Molesley) in a very different role.  Overall, it’s strong stuff, definitely “mature content,” replete with rivalries and turf wars, and exceedingly well done.

WHAT I’M READING

This is the time of year when I give myself permission to read more fluff, or shall we say, less serious literature.  Recently, it was The Memory of Violets by Hazel Gaynor and At the Water’s Edge, the newest novel from Sara Gruen of Water for Elephants.  Gaynor’s book is a historical novel about two sisters who are flower sellers in 19th century London.  Their lives intersect nearly 40 years later with a young housemother at a home that trains girls to make paper flowers.  I enjoy historical novels in general and this one presents a slice of society of which I knew very little.

Somehow I’ve escaped reading any of Gruen’s previous commercially successful novels.  At the Water’s Edge is set in 1944 at an inn near Loch Ness in the Scottish highlands.  The three principal characters are spoiled, rich, hapless young Americans from Philadelphia on a quest to redeem themselves by recording the famous monster.  Maddie, wife of one of the two men, has a checkered family history, and has never done anything for herself.  Living in spartan accommodations with strict food rationing in place, she is forced to face her own self-centeredness and the true state of her marriage.

I found the whole premise a bit farfetched and initially had little sympathy for her or Ellis and Hank.  Nonetheless, I did keep reading and was absorbed enough in finding out whether anyone got what he or she deserved to read to the end.

Tidy Tidbits: Netflix & Duenas

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WHAT I’M WATCHING

To stay motivated on the treadmill, I take advantage of the offerings on streaming Netflix. Over the years, I watched the entire seven seasons of West Wing (that one on DVD), got hooked on a somewhat hokey Australian series about two long lost sisters running a sheep farm, was caught up in the dirty dealings in House of Cards, and then endured endless surgeries and ruptured relationships on Grey’s Anatomy.

More recently, I had fun with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in Grace and Frankie. The episodes were too short (only about 30 minutes) for my ideal treadmill time and the language salty, but these women are marvelous together.

Now, thanks to a recommendation from one of my sisters, I’m thoroughly immersed in historic Toronto in Murdoch Mysteries. The first two episodes were a bit slow, but then it picked up.  Set just before 1900, the series brings in historical figures such as Harry Houdini, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Buffalo Bill Cody, who add unexpected twists to the murders to be solved. Detective William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) is dark, almost impishly handsome and always impeccably dressed. He is an emotionally reserved man of science who gets around, always in suit and tie and homburg, on his bicycle. And he is always aided in his investigations by the lovely pathologist, Dr. Julie Ogden.   There is some sly humor and an ongoing romantic tension between the detective and the doctor that adds to the cleverness and creativity of this show.  I should note that I am currently in season 2 and there are at least eight seasons in all.

I even occasionally watch TV when I’m not exercising.  I enjoyed the original Poldark on Masterpiece Theatre in the 1970’s, so much so that I bought the DVDs to re-watch it, but never did. Now I’m getting re-acquainted with Ross Poldark and Demelza and the stunning Cornwall landscape in the new version premiering, again, on Masterpiece. The first episode just aired so there’s lots more to come.

WHAT I’M READING

I’m not quite sure what to make of the novel I just finished. Written in Spanish and translated, The Heart Has Its Reasons by Maria Duenas, is set mostly in California in the fictional town and college, Saint Cecilia. The main character is a Spanish professor separated from her husband who comes to the San Francisco area on a fellowship.

It’s an academic novel, a novel about one professor’s research into another scholar’s legacy, and about second chances in life. Blanca is trying to find a new way forward while trawling her way through a famous professor’s papers to uncover his somewhat mysterious last work.  She develops friendships with two male colleagues, but at points I found the tone overly didactic.  I got a brief history of the California missions along with background on Spain before and right after the Spanish Civil War.  For me, Blanca was not well fleshed out and the two men also seemed somewhat flat.  Much is stated about these characters rather than portrayed through their words or actions.  Nonetheless, the book was a success in Spain.