Exercise Punta Gorda Style

I woke up today and the heat and humidity had magically vanished without a drop of rain falling.  I wanted to take a walk instead of going to the gym so I decided to try the walk over the bridge that spans the Peace River and links Punta Gorda to Port Charlotte.  I drove to the hotel at the foot of the bridge, turned on my Ipod and started across, not know exactly what to expect.  I have to say that I don't really get the allure of this trek.  The bridge is about a mile across and there is traffic whizzing by you pretty much all the time.  It reminds me a bit of walking or jogging on the esplanade by the East River in NYC, which never seemed that appealing to me.  There were a couple of nice points, however.  First, there's a nice breeze, which would be great on a hot day.  Second, you can sing at the top of your lungs without having to be concerned about disturbing other people--or hearing yourself, for that matter, which is always a plus when you're talking about my voice!

I did discover one nice thing, which is that there's a path that goes under the bridge and runs along Charlotte Harbor for some distance.  I will definitely try this out one day when I feel like walking somewhere other than in the neighborhood.  In the short distance that I traveled, I saw some interesting birds along the shore.  Sadly, I was unable to identify them (other than the pelican) so perhaps I'll have to add ornithology to my ever-growing to-do list.

Arcimboldo - Nature and Fantasy - at the National Gallery of Art

When on the DC leg of my October "Friends' Tour", Althea and I headed down to the National Gallery of Art.  Her son, Colin, had a summer internship at the NGA that he parlayed into a job for the Fall, so we decided to take a stroll through the Museum before we brought him home.  (As an aside, the NGA, like most museums in DC, charges no admission--it is truly a national treasure!)  The Arcimboldo Exhibit was front and center at the Museum and it was a strange and interesting one.  Note:  If you are interested in reading in detail about his life and work, this National Gallery link will provide you access to the brochure from the Exhibit.  http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/arcimboldoinfo.shtm

Arcimboldo painted during the Renaissance era when, according to the Exhibit brochure, "the rise of the new sciences of botany, horticulture and zoology...focused artists' attention on the natural world to an extent not seen since antiquity."  Arcimboldo took this new focus to extraordinary--and bizarre--lengths, creating entire paintings using the forms of fruits, vegetables and animals.  He did several series of paintings and the one at right here is Spring, from his series on the seasons that was created for Maximilian II.  This is actually the most aesthetically appealing of the works that we saw to my eye with its use of seasonal flowers and warm tones.  Amazingly, 80 different varieties of flowering plants have been identified in this work.  Contrast this with the painting of Water from his series on the elements which he also created for Maximilian.  Here he uses fish and other aquatic life to create his image and I find it pretty disgusting, yet fascinating in its creativity. 

Arcimboldo's works were recognized as a bit of an inside joke by his contemporaries.   In particular, his series on the seasons and the elements were acknowledged as political allegories.  The brochure explains that "They represent a microcosm of the universe and proclaim the Hapsburg empire to be eternal like the cycle of the seasons.  Further, the disparate creatures and plants that coexist harmoniously in Arcimboldo's composite heads symbolize the peace and prosperity of Maximilian's magnificent reign."  If they say so!  What this really goes to show in my mind is that all art has to be put in the context of when it was created and all of the circumstances surrounding it.  Whether a particular work is visually pleasing or not may be important if you are going to buy the work and live with it day in and day out, but not if you are just taking it in.  In my mind, viewing an exhibit like this and having to stretch a bit to appreciate it is well worth the effort--and one of the joys of retirement is having the time to do so!

If you want to see more, you can find images of his complete works at http://www.giuseppe-arcimboldo.org/.

Books Not Making My Hit Parade -- October 2010

Throughout my life, I've always felt the need to finish what I started, whether I liked it or not.  It was only a couple of years ago that I realized that that credo does not have to extend to books that I am not enjoying.  What a revelation!  I do still sometimes persevere with a book that I'm not loving in hopes that it will get better, but I'm much better at calling it quits than I used to be.  Here are a couple of books that I would not put under anyone's Christmas tree:

--Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  This tale of twin brothers born of a nun and a surgeon in Ethiopia goes on and on and digresses and goes on and on some more.  Life is too short.  I started reading this book in Nova Scotia, put it down, started reading it again, put it in the car with Jay to bring home while I did my little tour of the Northeast and, three weeks after the car left Nova Scotia, the book is still on the floor well of the back seat.  Enough said.

--South of Broad.  Boy, did I love some of Pat Conroy's books when I read them in my relative youth.  They seemed full of great characters and intense stories.  And the movie version of Prince of Tides was great (although I was always troubled by the way Barbra Streisand dressed in that movie--it didn't seem therapeutic at all!)  So, I was really looking forward to reading South of Broad, his first novel in many years.  Hated it.  Hated the characters, hated the overly dramatic writing, found it actually painful to read.  Donated it to a local charity for someone else to be disappointed by.

--Truth and Beauty.  Ann Patchett might be my all time favorite author.  Her writing is so beautiful and the stories are wonderful.  If you haven't read Bel Canto or The Magician's Assistant, get thee to a library or bookstore ASAP.   I'm not, however, loving Truth and Beauty, a non-fiction work about her relationship with Lucy Grealy, a fellow classmate at Sarah Lawrence (although they didn't know each other there) and the Iowa Writer's Program.  Grealy was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer when she was 9 years old and lost one-third to one-half of her jaw to the disease followed by years of chemotherapy and over 30 reconstructive surgeries.  I guess it's not surprising that she is on the screwed up side.  In the opening chapters, Patchett tells of their meeting in Iowa where they are going to be sharing an apartment.  They weren't friends at the time--just people who were coming together as a matter of convenience.  When Patchett arrived at the apartment, Lucy ran and jumped into her arms and told her how happy she was that she was finally there.  Huh????  As far as I can tell, they'd barely had two words up to that point.  I have to admit to probably being put off by trying to imagine what Lucy looked like.  In the book, she sounds freakish and is often wearing a bandage on her jaw.  When I looked her up on the web, she actually is not unattractive, although you can see her self-consciousness.  Anyway, I will persevere with this book and, who knows, I might change my mind and have to move it to a separate post if I enjoy it, but it does not have the same elegance and style of Patchett's works of fiction.

The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper

Now that I'm all of 25 pages into The Book of Joe, the second book I've read by Jonathan Tropper, I think it's safe to say that he has family issues!  The construct of this novel is reminiscent of This is Where I Leave You--a father has suddenly taken ill and the family is gathering by his bedside.  The protagonist in the story (surprisingly named "Joe") is heading home for the first time in 17 years, and is full of trepidation.  He now has to face both his family and various friends and acquaintances who were featured in a book he wrote that was made into a major motion picture.   I'm gathering that the portrayals were not flattering. 

This is Where I Leave You immediately engaged me with its humor.  Tropper seems more thoughtful in The Book of Joe, such as when Joe thinks about two of his high school friends whom he wrote about in his book as he makes his way home.  "Time doesn't heal as much as it buries things in the undergrowth of your brain, where they lie in wait to ambush you when you least expect it.  And so, as the years passed, Sammy became little more than an exhibit in the museum of my memory, and Wayne was reduced to an enigmatic hologram fading in and out of perception."    Who hasn't experienced feelings like this when they contemplate making a return to their past?

A little later in the book, when approaching town, he is shocked when all the memories of his childhood creep up on him.  "Memories that should have long since crumbled to dust...turn out to have been hermetically sealed and perfectly preserved, not summoned up as if by posthypnotic suggestion.  There is a sense of violation in learning that...my mind has maintained such a strong connection with the town, as if my brain's been sneaking around behind my back."   Again, who hasn't experienced these types of feelings when returning to home?  All our family dynamics are somehow still intact and most of us revert to form, notwithstanding that we are now adults ourselves. 

As the book progresses, you find that life hasn't left any of the characters in this book unscathed.  The story weaves between the past and the present freely as Joe meets up with the people who were portrayed in his book.  (As an aside, the font in the book changes when you revert to the past.  Empire Falls also used this device to help the reader keep track and I admit to finding it helpful.)   Just as in This Is Where I Leave You, the book ends without everything being wrapped up with a neat little bow on top, but with hope for the future.   A good read but I wouldn't put it on the top of your list.

The Runaways -- Not Your Typical High School Musical

It's not often that you wake up the morning after a high school theater performance thinking about the play and feeling like you would get more out of it if you could see it a second time.  Cut to North Broward Prep's rendition of the 1984 play The Runaways.   I went to see the play because my niece is a member of the cast and my nephew plays guitar in the band.  (One of the advantages of moving to Florida is being able to do this type of duty--and I have to admit that I expected that I would be sitting in the auditorium smiling occasionally as Elizabeth appeared on stage but generally wishing that I was at home watching the Yankees lose their chance at a repeat.)   I didn't know anything about the play other than the general theme of runaway kids and that both the theater program and the school at large had gone to some lengths to expose students and their families to the very adult issues that teens can face.  The cast of the play spent an afternoon docket session at a juvenile court and had a workshop with a therapist who deals with "survival" issues and the school sponsored an evening talk for students and their families with a panel that included a recovering heroin addict, a woman who suffered from an eating disorder and a gay child and parent. 

The play consists of a number of songs and monologues that tell the stories of why teens run away from home and what happens when they do.  There is no real narrative, so each vignette stands on its own.  Not surprisingly, some were more powerful and effective than others.  "I Went Back Home" tells a heart wrenching tale of a child who returns home after ten days only for his parents to turn the TV up louder when he tries to talk to them.  (The parents actually do worse things, but this was the the most striking action in some ways.)  "Spoons" tells the story of a child who grew up in an orphanage and threw his spoon at the wall while eating in an attempt to get attention.  It seemed like a small step from there to using a spoon as a prop in his heroin addicted life.  And in "Song of a Child Prostitute," you hear about a 13 year old runaway who is proud of her place as the number one lady in her pimp's life.   Other vignettes did not work as well.  Take "Appendectomy" in which a pseudo doctor is treating a girl for appendicitis and finds bruises on her back.  This actually sounds more powerful here than it was in the performance, which was extremely abstract.  My nephew tells me that the appendectomy was a "huge metaphor for the pain" the teen was suffering from.  OK, then.  Or "Spanish Argument" which was, in fact, an argument in Spanish.  I appreciate the intention behind this, but if you don't speak Spanish, you didn't really get the import. 

The play was extremely avant garde and no doubt would have fit in well at an Off Broadway venue.   I did a bit of research and learned that The Runaways was developed in 1984 by a writer who sought out teens in shelters and on the streets to hear their stories.  The original cast actually included some of the runaways, an amazing thought.   I am proud of North Broward for tackling this project.  With all of the work that goes into these productions, why not do something that will stay with both the cast and the audience rather than yet another rendition of Grease or Once Upon a Mattress?

New York State of Mind -- Museum Review

When I was planning my recent trip to New York, I noticed that the Museum of Modern Art had a Matisse exhibit on (Matisse:  Radical Invention, 1913-1917) so I made plans to see it with a friend.  As a bonus, she invited me to come to a class that she's taking at the New School called "The Art of Viewing Art."  This class is taught by John Zinsser, a 12 year veteran instructor on this topic, and covers art on display at museums and galleries in the City.  For the first time ever, he was covering the same exhibit over the course of two weeks and I was lucky enough to get to sit in on the second class, at which a woman named Mira Schor was a guest lecturer.  The first class dealing with the Matisse exhibit was about the art in the show and Zinsser apparently went into detail about particular works.  The second class did cover some of the specific works of art contained in the exhibit, but Zinsser and Schor talked as well about some economic and philosophical points raised by the exhibit as well.  It was fascinating!

Schor has been around the art scene for many years and is an artist herself who has a work currently on display in the exhibit at the Jewish Museum entitled, "Shifting the Gaze:  Painting and Feminism."   Due to her reputation as a feminist artist, one student asked Schor if she was one of the "guerilla girls."  I had never heard of this group but they are a group of women who have tried over the last 25 years to raise awareness about the lack of representation of women artists in galleries, museums and auction houses.  They've used humor as a tool in their arsenal, and apparently have been quite controversial at times.

(If you are interested in reading more about them, go to http://www.guerrillagirls.com/.)  Because the "girls" are anonymous, Schor would not say whether or not she was on of the participants, although she did say that she endorses their cause.   But I digress.... back to the Matisse exhibit. 

Matisse's work is always enjoyable to view, and having a bit of "inside information" about things to look for in his work made it all the more interesting.  The catalogue for the exhibit was described by Zinsser as a "Discovery Channel narrative" about Matisse's work process.  Unlike many artists, Matisse chose not to wholly conceal the changes he made to a painting ("pentimenti") as he progressed.  As result, you can often see ghosts of the prior placement of the image if you pay close attention. One student in the class likened this to a photographer's proof sheet with the images that aren't up to snuff being crossed out--an apt analogy. 

One of the most important works contained in the exhibit is The Moroccans (go to http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79588 to see this painting if you're not familiar with it.)   Schor and Zinsser talked about the formalities of modernism that are on display in this piece:  color, scale, line and composition.  His use of black to delineate space is particularly striking.  There was an amusing exchange between the two instructors concerning what the painting represented.  OK, there's definitely a mosque--no doubt about that one.  Then there was agreement that the right hand image is that of an imam leading prayers.  Zinsser then related the story of when he was first teaching about this work and referred to the "round green shapes" in the left side of the painting and how someone pointed out that these figures represented the members of the mosque praying.  This seems so obvious, and Schor said that this is something that she saw immediately.  Interestingly, the exhibit contained an excerpt from Matisse's journal about this work, in which he described the green shapes as squash in a garden!  

The exhibit also contained four sculptures of a human back crafted by Matisse over a period of time.  In each iteration, he used the mold from the preceding sculpture as his starting point, adding or detracting from the work to develop his current vision.  The exhibit had a great short video showing this process. 

I'm sure that I would have enjoyed the Matisse exhibit without having the benefit of Zinsser's class, but it definitely added another layer to the viewing and reminded me how much I enjoyed the art history classes I took in college.  I think I would have benefited from a bit of an explanation about another exhibit I saw at the Met during my trip:  The Big Bambu (the photo is owned by AFP/Getty).  This exhibit is comprised of 5,000 bamboo poles lashed together with 50 miles of colored nylon ropes and was constructed by the artists and a team of rock climbers in three phases over the spring, summer and autumn.   This exhibit I didn't get at all and, ignorant as I am, it just kind of seemed like a waste of space.  As you can see, it looks more or less like a bird's nest.  The bamboo itself is striking, and it probably would have been interesting to walk the paths that lead up into the nest if we'd had more time, but I frankly just wasn't that interested.   So, instead of taking the walk in the bamboo, I walked myself down to the Galleries of Oceanic Art and spent an hour enjoying myself looking at the masks and spirit boards.  Which reminds me--where am I going to display our mask collection in our new home???

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

Richard Russo is another authors whose much-awaited book I picked up at the Book Expo and promptly sold.  Last spring, I read That Old Cape Magic and realized that it was worth the fuss surrounding it.  Although one friend told me she found it "depressing," I found it interesting and very readable.  So, when I stumbled upon his Pulitzer Prize winning book Empire Falls at a discount store in Nova Scotia, I promptly put it in my basket--not much of a risk for a $1.50 outlay.

As a bit of a digression, Empire Falls was made into a mini-series and I had it in my Netflix-equivalent queue in Nova Scotia all summer, with no success.  This explains the cover art on my copy of the book, which proudly displays the actors who play the key roles in the movie.  I personally tend to avoid books with movie cover art for a couple of reasons.  First, despite my distinctly low brow taste in books as a general matter, the publisher trading on the fact that the book has been made into a movie seems to demean the writing  in some way.  (Maybe this explains why I've been lugging a copy of The Secret Life of Bees from New Jersey to Nova Scotia and back (and now to Florida) without even opening the book, despite the fact that I really want to read it.)  Second, seeing which actors played the roles every time I pick up the book vastly reduces my ability to create my own image of the characters.  In this case--spoiler alert--I can't seem to get over the fact that Paul Newman played the unkempt and rascally Max.  Call me crazy, but I just don't like to envision Newman with a food-encrusted beard.  I do, however, find it interesting that Philip Seymour Hoffman played Miles, the book's protagonist.  (In fact, this is why it was in my movie queue to begin with.)

Russo tells an engrossing story of life in a town that the 21st century has passed by.  The mills and factories that once provided employment for most of the town's residents have closed down, and you can almost see tumbleweeds rolling down what used to be the bustling main road.   Our protagonist runs a local diner, and it's a family affair--his brother is one of the cooks, his daughter helps out in the kitchen and his father, the urstwhile Max, occasionally washes a dish or two while looking for a hand-out.   The story in and of itself is interesting, and makes me think about what life must be like in many towns that have suffered a similar fate (think of Pittsfield, MA, which was abandoned by General Electric).  What makes this book memorable, though, is Russo's character development and insights into human behavior.  Miles struggles daily to make a living in a town that he hoped never to return to when he left for college.  The quirks of fate had something else in mind, though, leaving him in a state of constant wonder about the choices that he's made.  Miles' high school-aged daughter Tick exhibits a wisdom beyond her years, and some of Russo's most striking language comes when he speaks through her.  (At one point in the book Tick realizes that her ex-boyfriend is flirting with another girl.  When they were a couple, such behavior would have driven her crazy.  Now she doesn't care, and thinks that "Not giving a s**t is like the defrost option on a car's heater that miraculously unfogs the windshield, allowing you to see where you're going."   I am four-fifths of the way through this novel, and am anxious to see where this story is going, a sure sign of a book worth reading.

New York State of Mind - Theater Review

New York is a great place to be a tourist (especially when you are with people who are in the know about where to go and how to do things without breaking your purse strings).  I have so much that I want to chronicle that I'm just going to focus on the shows that I saw in this post--Next to Normal and Brief Encounter.

Next to Normal  (http://www.nexttonormal.com/home) has been playing for two and a half years and has been highly acclaimed. (Ben Brantley of the NYT calls it the "bravest and most surprising musical on Broadway.")   It won three Tony Awards in 2009 (including best original score for the theater) and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.  Still, I wasn't rushing to get tickets.  Was it because I knew the topic was mental illness?  Was it my general malaise about Broadway after seeing so many mediocre shows, wishing that I hadn't bothered to make the train trip in from NJ?  Who knows?  All I can say is that I am thrilled to have seen this extraordinary show.  I don't want to say any more about the story and spoil it for other theater goers, but it will make you laugh, cry and gasp.  Marin Mazzie's performance as Diana is unlike anything I've ever seen--to call it powerful does not begin to capture how compelling she is in this role (and she wasn't even the actress that won the Tony award!)  If you have the opportunity to see this show, don't miss it! 

I also caught Brief Encounter (http://www.roundabouttheatre.org/54/) at the Roundabout Theater (where I had a subscription for several years).  This show is a multi-media adaptation of the play by the same name by Noel Coward.  I'm a huge fan of Noel Coward shows (I saw Design for Living on a trip to London many years ago and remember being struck by the staging and by the sales of refreshments in the aisles of the theater during intermission!) so I was looking forward to this outing.  The show incorporates black and white film, cabaret style music and a heavy dose of melodrama.  Dorothy Atkinson was delightful in her role as Beryl, a slightly off-kilter character working in the local pub.  The play is, well, schmaltzy, but lots of fun and reminiscent in feel of the adaptation of Hitchcock's 39 Steps that the Roundabout put on last year.  While I wouldn't put this show in the "not to miss" category, you will definitely leave the theater smiling.

I'm Ready for My Close Up

Eliza Grisanti was ready for her close up on her tenth birthday. Having notified the world (or at least those humans whose e-mails addresses she had) of the upcoming big day, she made sure that her school mates didn't miss the opportunity to celebrate by sticking posters up throughout her classroom and the rest of the school. Her birthday gifts were theme-driven by her love for all things Harry Potter. You can see her here modeling her Hogwart scarf. Ah, to be young again!