The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

The Secret Life of Bees is one of those books that sat on my bedside stand for over a year before I picked it up--and once I did I wanted to read it straight through.   Set in the 1960s on the cusp of the civil rights movement, the story is told from the perspective of Lily, a white girl growing up in Sylvan, South Carolina. Sylvan is a town of "peach stands and Baptists churches, that sums it up."  Lily's life has not been easy.  Her mother died when she was young under devastating circumstances and she lives alone with her father T. Ray, an embittered man who is a disinterested father and a harsh disciplinarian.   When Lily engages in some particularly bad or disobedient behavior, her father's punishment is to make her kneel on "Martha Whites", a brand of grits, leaving thousands of little marks in her knees and a distaste for grits for life.  

Rosaleen is an African American woman who works as a maid for Lily and T. Ray and is the closest thing to a mother--or a friend--that Lily has.   Lily says of Rosaleen, "I used to have daydreams in which she was white and married to T. Ray and became my real mother.  Other times I was a Negro orphan she found in a cornfield and adopted.  Once in a while I had us living in a foreign country like New York, where she could adopt me and we could both stay our natural color."    What a wonderful passage--thought provoking, wistful and funny in one fell swoop.

Lily has a secret cache of her mother's belongings that she found while rummaging around in the attic one day.  The items include a much-treasured picture of her mother, a pair of white cotton gloves and, mysteriously, a small picture of black Mary (as in Mary, the mother of Jesus) that has been pasted on small piece of wood and has the words "Tiburon, S.C." written on the back.   On Lily's 14th birthday, she accompanies Rosaleen into town to register to vote.  A series of unfortunate events find Rosaleen first in jail and then in the hospital.  When Lily and her father get into another big fight, Lily up and liberates Rosaleen from her hospital bed and they hit the road for Tiburon for lack of a better plan. 

Upon their arrival in Tiburon, Lily stops in the general store to buy some provisions when she sees a jar of honey with the same picture of a black Mary on it that is in her mother's things.  She finds out from the storekeeper that the honey is made locally and she and Rosaleen head to the farm, where they are taken in by August, May and June Boatwright, three sisters who keep bees, make honey and live quite an interesting life.   From here on out, the book becomes an amazing story of the friendship, compassion and wisdom of these women.

Monk's writing is so easy to read that you can skim right over her wonderful words without noticing them if you don't pay attention.  At one point, August tells Lily a bit about her life experiences.  Monk writes, "We walked to the woods...with her stories still pulled soft around our shoulders.  I could feel them touching me in places, like an actual shawl."    I also love her treatment of racial issues and the civil rights movement.  The problems are there--and at times they are front and center--but they are woven into the book as one part of Lily's story as she learns a few things about her mother and a lot of things about herself and the importance of friendship.

It's impossible not to compare The Secret Life of Bees with Kathryn Stockett's The Help, which was an amazing book.  Both are stories of the civil rights movement; both are stories of the friendship of women; and both are great reads.   The Help made me think about myself and what type of person I would have been if I had been a young woman in the 1960s.  I didn't picture myself as a character in The Secret Life of Bees, but it did occasionally make me pause and think.   A book group would have a wonderful time reading both books and talking about the two of them head to head.

It's always a bit hard to figure out what to read when you're coming off a book that's so enjoyable and well-written.  I don't think I'll go back and try to finish Tana French's Faithful Place (which I have retitled "Wake Me When It's Over").   Maybe I'll start Dave Eggers' Zietoun, a story of post-hurricane Katrina.  Or maybe I'll roam the stacks at the library and see what jumps out at me.  I can only hope that whatever I end up reading next is half as engaging as The Secret Life of Bees.  

Literacy Volunteers Meet the Charlotte County School System

It looks like the name of my blog might have to change since it appears that I have what I call a "retirement job".  What, you might ask, is a retirement job?  For me, it's a job that I'll be doing for the enjoyment of it, not for the cold hard cash.  Having spent the last 18 months in New Jersey working with Literacy Volunteers of Union County as a tutor and a Board member, I found that I have a passion for the cause of adult literacy.  Here in Charlotte County, Florida, the illiteracy rate is 17.9%, which means that almost one of every five adults does not have the skills that people like us take for granted to negotiate through our daily lives.  So, one of the first things I did when I arrived in Punta Gorda was find a place where I could continue to help adult learners improve their literacy.

The Adult Learning Center in Port Charlotte is a different type of literacy program than what I'm used to working with.  Literacy Volunteers is a volunteer-based program (hence the name).   Tutors meet with their students one on one or in small groups to help them achieve their goals.  These goals can range from learning enough English to read a book to a grandchild to passing the GED.  Needless to say, a one size fits all approach doesn't work for this type of program.    The Adult Learning Center's general approach has been to provide classes for ESOL students and a lab environment for adult basic ed students (people working towards a GED), with assistance from paid instructors. This makes sense since the Center is part of the Charlotte County School System.  (It actually "sits" under the adult vocational tech center on an org chart.)   As the volunteer coordinator at the Adult Learning Center, my challenge is to figure out a way to meld the two programs. 

First I'd like to say a bit about becoming an employee of the Charlotte County School System.  The eventual goal is for the volunteer coordinator position to be a paid part-time job within the School District.  There's no money in the budget now to pay me so this is contingent on getting some grant money (and since I have to write the grant, who knows when that will happen!)  Leslie Isley, director of the Center, thought it would be a good idea to get me in the system now since it's a time consuming process, so I put an application in for an ESOL instructor position.  I have to say that I'm finding the diligence of the School District a bit hilarious.  Not only do I need three written references, I also have to submit transcripts from Mount Holyoke and Harvard Law School.  (Do they want to see my grades or just know that I actually graduated? Maybe they're curious about my SAT score!)  Whether they're looking at my transcripts or the completed reference forms (with questions about my non-existent teaching experience), they're not going to see anything that's remotely relevant to what I'll be doing here!   I am just finding this process a bit funny when nothing like this was required when I was being hired to work on multi-million dollar transactions for various financial services companies.  (Maybe that was actually the reason for the problems with the industry--my last job, after all, was with Bear Stearns!)

This is all a bit of a digression from the hard work involved in getting a program up and running.  In addition to writing a couple of grants for funding, I am putting together a small training program for prospective tutors (which will of course have to be marketed), figuring out how to match tutors with students and thinking ahead to keeping the tutors supported as they work with their students.  I commented to someone from another program that getting a program running is a daunting task.  Her response was to laugh and say that keeping it running is just as daunting!   It does make me wonder a bit what I have gotten myself into.  In the meantime, I just received an e-mail from an instructor at the Center saying that she has a new student who is reading at the second grade level who would like to work with a tutor.  When things get a bit overwhelming or frustrating as I move forward with my retirement job, I'll think about what a difference knowing how to read will make in this woman's life.

Charlotte Symphony Orchestra--Power and Passion II--The Music

Last Saturday evening, I was invited to attend the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra's second classical concert of the season.  I was so taken with the CSO's performance of Carmina Burana last fall that I jumped on the invitation, and I'm glad that I did. 

The first piece of the evening was Mahler's Symphony No. 5 - Fourth Movement - Adagietto.  We learned in the pre-concert lecture hosted by Katherine Caldwell that Mahler proposed to his wife by sending her the Adagietto.  Despite this romantic background, the Adagietto is typically associated with death and mourning as it is frequently played at funerals.  In fact, the Adagietto was conducted by Leonard Bernstein at the funeral mass for Bobby Kennedy held in St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1968.  A passionate piece indeed. 

When the orchestra started playing, I immediately noticed that Francis Wada, the CSO's music director and conductor, was not using a baton.  I recently went to a lecture that Francis gave about the history of conducting and learned that conductors use different batons--or no baton at all--for different types of compositions.  The intimate nature of the Adagietto lends itself to softer (albeit energetic) direction from the conductor, and it was a beautiful piece. 

The second piece of the evening was Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 33, featuring guest cellist Boris Kogan.  The Rococo consists of a theme, seven variations and two cadenzas, with essentially no break for the cellist.  In the pre-concert interview with Kogan, he shared that his favorite variations are the slower, more expressive ones, saying that "everyone knows that the cello can sing, now it's time to teach it to talk."   I would be hard pressed to say which variation was my favorite. 

The final piece of the evening was Brahms' Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73.  I don't know much about classical music, but I gather from the pre-concert lecture and the chatter among the audience that taking on Brahms is not for the weak of heart.  Again, the CSO rose to the challenge.   I particularly enjoyed the first movement, into which Brahms worked snippets of his famous lullaby.  Even knowing that the lullaby was coming, it still surprised me and made me smile. 

As I write this post, the CSO is playing with Barry Manilow during his tour through Southwest Florida.  They are in Tampa tonight, and a bus load of people from Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte took the trip up to see the concert and support their local symphony orchestra.   What a great opportunity for these musicians to try something different and to take their stuff on the road.  It's nice to have the CSO's skills and professionalism recognized by people outside of the community.  But it's even nicer to know that they have a home here.

Charlotte Symphony Orchestra - Power and Passion II - Cellist Boris Kogan

Last Saturday night I found myself waiting for the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra's concert to begin with a bit of trepidation.   What if Carmina Burana was just a fluke and I actually don't enjoy going to the symphony?  Happily, I found that isn't the case. 

My friend Kathy Hollinger and I started the evening by attending the pre-concert lecture on the evening's program.  The lectures are hosted by Katherine Caldwell who, among other things, plays principal oboe with the CSO and writes the program notes for the concerts.  The pre-concert lectures have outgrown the "black box room" so I am obviously not the only person who thinks that it's nice to have a bit of information fed to you about what you're going to be hearing in that evening's performance. 

The highlight of the pre-concert lecture was Kathy's talk with Boris Kogan, guest cellist.  Kogan is the principal cellist with the Thayer Symphony Orchestra in Leominster, Massachusetts (conductor Francis Wada's "other" family) and it was a treat to learn a bit about him and hear him play.  Kogan was born in Leningrad and began playing the cello at age six.  (Why the cello?  Because it was the only instrument that was available!  I started wondering about the relative size of a cello and a six-year old and, through the magic of the internet, learned that a full size cello is 46-48 inches and that smaller versions--as little as 1/8th of the normal size--can be found for children to learn on.  I wish I'd asked about this during the Q&A with Kogan!)

Kogan first played Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 33 when he was 18 years old.  Kogan shared with the audience that he had been asked eight days before the performance if he could play this piece for a concert.   (I'm not sure if Kogan was playing with the Leningrad Symphony, the Television and Radio Symphony Orchestra or another orchestra all together at that point--being a child prodigy, he had quite a resume by this time!)   With the audacity of an 18 year old (which you can really only understand once you've heard the piece), he said "of course," even though he'd never played it before!  He had to search two days for the music and then had six days to learn this challenging piece.   The performance with the CSO would be his fifth or sixth time playing the "Rococo," as he affectionately referred to the piece, and it is one of his favorites.

Kogan emigrated to Massachusetts in 1991, the year the Soviet Union dissolved.  When asked by Caldwell why he left Russia, he declined to comment, saying only that it is better here in the United States.  Like many educated emigrants with minimal English language skills, Kogan's employment opportunities in the United States were limited and his first job here was as a dishwasher.   When he introduced Kogan and the "Rococo," Francis shared the story of how he and Kogan met with the audience.  Kogan was at a public library in Massachusetts and was getting frustrated with the librarian who couldn't help him find the music for the "violinist on the top."   A third person overheard this exchange and called Francis, telling him that he needed to get over to meet this person who was looking for music for--you guessed it--Fiddler on the Roof!   Shortly after this meeting, Francis heard Kogan play his cello and invited him to join the Thayer Symphony Orchestra.  As Kogan played the Rococco during the concert, you could see the affection and respect that the two men have developed for one another during their 20 year relationship.

Having the opportunity to be introduced to Kogan--and hearing Francis' story of their meeting--added another layer of enjoyment to the concert.  Our seats were in the front row of the hall, and I had an opportunity to watch Kogan's intricate fingering on the cello as he played the Rococco.  Both the music and being up close and personal with a cello were firsts for me, and both were delightful experiences.  As I sat there, I thought a bit about Kogan, a Russian immigrant, meeting up with Francis, a Japanese immigrant, and how they must have had some language barriers to deal with as they developed their relationship.  Music is truly a universal language, however, and it was clear during Saturday night's performance that the two men have absolutely no trouble communicating.

The Meandering Manatees Volkssport Club

Biking to breakfast on Saturdays with the Yacht Clubs folks isn't only an opportunity to get some early morning exercise offset by pork fat, it's also a chance to gather some great ideas on things to do in the area.  Yesterday morning I got talking with a woman about walks organized by the AVA (which was quite confusing at first because my lawyer brain kicked in and I thought we were talking about the American Bar Association).   It turns out that AVA stands for American Volkssport Association, a non-profit that sponsors walking clubs and walking events across the United States. 

The basic idea is that organizers develop 10K walks within their area.   Some of the walks are  organized events but many are self-guided.  For self-guided walks, a start/finish location is selected and a "box" is housed there with a map of the route and information on the local Volkssport Club.  As I understand it, people who are members of AVA (or the local equivalent) have a book with "stamps" in it evidencing the walks that they've taken.  Eleanor, my breakfast companion, told us that she has completed walks in the capitals of all 50 states--what an accomplishment!  She developed a walk in Punta Gorda for the Meandering Manatees, the local branch of the AVA, and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather today to take the walk with a friend.

With our maps in hand, we started our walk at Fisherman's Village, a colorful complex of shops and restaurants on Charlotte Harbor.  We followed the directions (which have tidbits of info about fun things you see along the way) and shortly found ourselves in History Park.  I have never been to History Park before, and on Sundays you can shop at a farmers' market in addition to viewing some historic buildings.  The Trabue Land Sales office is a neat old building built by Colonel Isaac Trabue, who was the developer of Punta Gorda.  (I learned on this week's bike ride that Punta Gorda was originally named Trabue and that there was some litigation that lead to the name change, but that's a subject for another post!)  The Land Sales office houses a little gift shop that has for sale, among other things, photos taken by a local birdwatcher.  It turns out that there is an eagles' nest in History Park and the photographer managed to get an incredible shot of an adult male eagle in his roost with a large fish that he'd caught.  The photographer was working in the shop today and she told us about the events leading up to the picture.  She was outside in the park and looked up to see an adult male eagle with a fish in its mouth being chased by a juvenile eagle who apparently thought that fish looked mighty tasty.  The photographer watched the chase with her camera in hand as the adult eagle fended off the juvenile and came to rest in his roost.  She told us that the adult eagle was panting so hard that she could literally see his tongue hanging out of his mouth!  It took him about half an hour to recover sufficiently to enjoy his catch, which gave her an opportunity to take the picture we were admiring.   After perusing her photos (which are pretty amazing) and checking out the wares at the market, we continued on. 

The walk took us onto some streets I'd never been on before and past many of the murals that adorn the walls of the buildings in downtown Punta Gorda.   Eventually, we ended up at the carving of Calostimucu, number 10 in the series of Whispering Giants done by Hungarian sculptor Peter "Wolf" Toth.   I've always thought that this carving was cool, but I like it even more now that I know that Toth carved a series of sculptures depicting Native Americans and Canadian First People and donated one or more to each U.S. state and Canadian Province. (Here's a fascinating article about Toth and the relocation of Calostimucu after Hurricane Charley in 2004:    
http://scc.eed.sunnewspapers.net/Olive/ODE/charlotte_sun/LandingPage/LandingPage.aspx?href=U0NDLzIwMDUvMDMvMjA.&pageno=MjA.&entity=QXIwMjAwMA..&view=ZW50aXR5 )


Two hours after starting out, we ended up back at Fisherman's Village, my feet a bit worse for wear but the rest of me happy to have spent a nice morning outside learning a bit more about my community.  I have added several things to my "to do around Punta Gorda" list (which seems to be getting longer by the day), including taking a more formal tour of the murals, visiting the Blanchard House Museum of African American History and Culture of Charlotte County and going on a birding walk with the local Audobon Society.  I'm looking forward to using the AVA's guides to explore other cities and parks in Florida.  And I can't wait until my next bike to breakfast to learn about more fun things to do and places to explore in Southwest Florida.  Who knew that retirement required so much stamina???      

Disappointing Reads by Favored Authors - Winter 2010-2011

Sometimes I stumble upon a book when perusing the library shelves and think, "Oh, I've read some things by that author that I really enjoyed.  What a treat it will be to read something else that she's written."  Sadly, sometimes things just don't turn out that way.  Here's a short list of some recent reading disappointments:

--Anne Tyler's Back When We Were Grown-Ups.  This books starts in a promising fashion.  "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person."   Like the protagonist, I'm at that mid-century mark and am spending some time thinking about my life, where I've come from and where I'm going.  So I guess I might have been hoping that this book would provide some illumination -- or at least would stir a few thoughts.  Nope.  Tyler tells the story of a woman who was widowed very young and is now running the family party business and living with a family that she doesn't seem to feel part of, even after 25+ years.  She starts thinking of what might have been and decides to look up her old beau--she was her "authentic" person then, and she decides that being with him (and resuming her college research on Robert E. Lee) might be just what she needs.  Conveniently, he is recently divorced and when she meets him for dinner, she learns, among other unappealing tidbits, that he cooks a pot of chili every Sunday and parcels it out into seven servings for the week.  OK, I'd be lacing up my running shoes right then but she persists.  Bottom line, she decides at the end of the day, in a Dorothy-like manner, that there's no place like home.  Maybe some of Tyler's earlier works like The Accidental Tourist and Digging to America wouldn't hold up for me now, but I remember them as having interesting quirky characters that I enjoyed reading about.  Not so in this missive.  Enough said. 

--Laura Lippman's Another Thing to Fall.  I generally like Lippman's books, most of which feature Baltimore-based private investigator Tess Monaghan.  I love getting into a series featuring a character, learning about him or her as I go from book to book.  (Think Lee Childs and his Jack Reacher character or, to a lesser degree, Harlan Coben and his Myron Bolitar character.)   In this book, Lippman takes us onto the set of a TV show being filmed in Baltimore.  Things are not running smoothly, however, with acts of sabotage occurring on set.  Monaghan is brought in to act as body guard for one of the stars and does some sideline investigation of what's going on.  Suffice it to say that I returned this book to the library a few days ago and I couldn't remember the title when I sat down to write this (even after looking at a list!)   A big "who cares?" is in order.

--Dennis Lehane's Moonlight Mile.  Even more of a "who cares" is in order for this very disappointing book by an author I love.  Both Mystic River and Shutter Island were powerful, engaging stories.  Moonlight Mile--not so much.  In fact, I would have quit reading this book if I hadn't taken it on Playmobil with me for a day long cruise with no other reading material available.  It tells the story of a case taken on by Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, the protagonists from some of his other books, including Gone, Baby, Gone which was made into a movie with Ben Affleck.   I don't even want to talk about the plot, which was hard to follow.  The good news is that (spoiler alert) at the end of the book, they decided to give up the investigation business for good.  Hopefully Lehane will stick with this promise and get back to writing the stand alone books that have made his reputation.

I'm heading on a road trip on Monday and have three audio books packed for the ride.  Hopefully one of them will be "worthy" about writing about upon my return!  Happy reading!

Biking to Breakfast

IYC bikers at Cape Haze Pioneer Trail

One of the things that attracted us to Punta Gorda was the active lifestyle here.    Nice weather and a group of people who like to get out there and try new things is a great combination!    We joined the Isles Yacht Club and it has a monthly newsletter that runs almost 30 pages long with all of the activities you have to choose from.   There are boating related groups (obviously) but almost every other activity you can think of as well from a book club to a kayaking group to card games to billiards to, you guessed it, a biking group.  

The group gets together almost every Saturday morning and bikes to a local breakfast spot.   I've only been once so far and we went to The Smokehouse.  It was a cold and blustery day (for Punta Gorda--it's all relative but I do think it was in the low 50s and windy) and I was happy to get to the restaurant.  We all piled in, with the women sitting at one table and the men at another.  People immediately started telling me that the biscuit with sausage gravy was the way to go so that's what I ordered.  Delicious and extremely hearty.  I didn't feel like I needed to eat the rest of the day.  Conceptually it reminded me of poutine in Nova Scotia--an occasional "treat" but a heart attack--and serious love handles--waiting to happen.  (In case you haven't had the pleasure of experiencing poutine, it's french fries topped with cheese curds and brown gravy.  Sounds disgusting, I know, but it's actually very tasty.)

Once a month the group gets together for a longer bike ride.  The ride this week was to Cape Haze Pioneer Trail in Rotunda.  This "trail" is part of the national rails-to-trails conservancy and is in the process of being extended so that it will go all the way to Boca Grande, which will be nice.  For now, though, the ride was a disappointment--basically riding on a sidewalk through a neighborhood and back.   It was a beautiful morning, though, and I met some great people.  The gentleman who organized this particular outing is 76 years old and bikes or kayaks every day.  His bike odometer showed 5500 miles and he told us that he was disappointed that he wasn't able to adjust the odometer when he got it to add the 1700 miles he'd previously logged to the mileage.  Another rider of the same vintage showed over 24,000 miles on his odometer.  What????   I know these guys have had a long time to log these miles but I was told that they routinely bike 10-15 miles at a clip and they are in great shape so I don't think we're talking mileage accumulated over a lifetime.  I was pleased with the measly 13.8 miles that we rode that day and have to admit that my legs felt it when we got off our bikes.  (Note to self:  Training is required before March bike trip with the ladies.)

After the ride most of us gathered for lunch at a local Olive Garden.  (I do find that it's important to counteract the benefit of exercise almost immediately by eating so this worked well for me.)  I had a chance to talk with some people and add to my ever-growing list of things to do in the area.  A thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a day.

The ride in February is to Myakka River State Park (http://www.myakkariver.org/) and should be much more scenic.   We were told that we'll have lunch at a concession stand in the park that offers alligator stew.  Now that's one experience that I don't want to miss!

Resistance by Anita Shreve

Sometimes you unwittingly get into a pattern of reading books related to a particular topic.  I found this happened with the trio of 9/11 books that I read last fall and now seem to have fallen into this same pattern with respect to WWII.   Anita Shreve is an author known primarily for her tales of women surviving difficult personal issues--be it a bigamist husband in The Pilot's Wife or the responsibility of a newfound baby in Light on Snow .   Her books generally are categorized as "chick lit," a characterization that does not give her writing the credit it deserves.  In any event, I just finished Resistance and it is a powerful novel that goes beyond her traditional tales of domestic lives, telling the story of Belgian resistance fighters during WWII.

This book is really a gem.  As always, Shreve's writing is lyrical and drew me in from the start.  The story begins on December 30, 1943 when an American bomber crashes near a Belgian village.  You immediately are introduced to Ted, the pilot of the bomber, who is full of self-recrimination about the choices he made that led to the plane's crash landing.  Shreve works small facts into the story that give the book an authenticity.  For instance, you learn that there were two types of flight suits in use by airmen at the time to battle the cold of the high altitudes--traditional leather suits (think bomber jackets) and electric suits.  Electric suits worked well while flying but airmen who had to bail out of their planes (or whose planes crashed) who were wearing old fashioned leather flight suits had a better chance of surviving the elements than those wearing electric suits.   

As the village becomes aware of the disaster, people begin arriving at the crash site--some with the simple curiosity that causes drivers to slow down on the highway to peer at an accident, others with more complicated motives.  One of the heroes of the story is a ten year old boy named Jean, the son of a local "collabo" who is ashamed of his father's support of the Nazis.  Jean skips school to search the woods for survivors of the crash and finds Ted,  moving him in a wheelbarrow from the woods to his father's barn where he hides him in a trough and covers him with potatoes until he can find help to move him to safety.
 
Enter Claire and Henri, a couple who hide Jews and airmen in a secret room in their home until they can be moved to the Maquis, the guerilla bands of the French Resistance.  (I have to admit that this is a term I had never heard of before and apparently one other reader hadn't either as she helpfully wrote the definition in the margin of the book.)  Shreve says of Claire:  "She knew the beginnings of many stories, but not their endings."  Those few words say so much to me about the generosity of the people who provided sanctuary and how difficult it must have been for them to never know the fate of the people they had sheltered.     

The story has a number of twists and turns that keep the reader engaged until the end.  While a novel, it is an educational and thought provoking story.   Reading this book brought back memories of my high school French teacher, Madame Crutchfield.  Madame Crutchfield was a tiny wisp of a woman with gray hair, granny glasses and an amazing wit.  I took private classes from her to work on my French.  (I don't remember the reason why the regular classes didn't work nor do I remember very much French, as my husband likes to remind me whenever the fact that I was president of the French Club comes up for some bizarre reason.)   From time to time, Madame Crutchfield would mention that she worked in the Resistance.  Being the self-absorbed teenager that I was, I didn't take advantage of the opportunity to hear her stories, something that I now deeply regret.  As I was reading the book, though, I thought of Madame Crutchfield as one of the Maquis waiting for the Jews and airmen to be transported to her.   Thanks to Anita Shreve for writing this book and reminding me of this special woman.   

Take a Vinyasa

I've been practicing yoga the past couple of years and find it both a good work-out and very centering.  (One definition of yoga is actually "controlling the mind" so this makes sense.)  So I was very excited to check out the Yoga Sanctuary in Punta Gorda--with a name like that, how could I go wrong?  Just to backtrack a bit, in Chester, my yoga instructor teaches in the Iyengar method, which focuses on holding postures for a period of time so that you can really get into the pose.  In NJ, I enjoyed flow classes, which had a nice pace and involved some inversions (head stands, head stands and backbends).   I actually learned how to do a free standing head stand, which was quite satisfying!  The class that I seem to have become a regular at here is yet another type of yoga--Ashtanga.

It was with some trepidation that I went to my first class.  I was told just to follow along as best as I could, which I did for the next 90 minutes.  Each class starts by singing a chant in Sanskrit.  (In Chester, we do call and response so you at least have some idea what it's supposed to sound like.  Here most of the students actually have the chant memorized but I follow along on a laminated sheet.)   The class then goes into a series of "asanas" or postures, starting with five sets of each of the Sun Salutations.  According to one website, "In Hindu mythology, the sun god is worshiped as a symbol of health and immortal life.  The Sun Salutation gives reverence to the internal sun as well as to the external sun, the creative life force of the universe..."  Pretty powerful stuff.

Chataranga--I'm sure I look just like this!

After saluting the sun, we move on to the rest of the asanas.  I don't think I can even aspire to doing the poses to their full degree in the time I have left on this planet--my shoulders and hips just aren't that flexible--but the instructor gives modifications that are more or less manageable.  As you become more familiar with the poses, you can begin to pay attention to your breath and use it in the proper way (again, something I aspire to).  At the end of many poses, the instructor says, "Take a vinyasa."  This is your cue to go through a routine that includes "chataranga," a modification of a plank, followed by upward and downward dog positions.  At the end of the class, I feel like I've had a good work-out (having done more than 50 "chatarangas," you do feel it!) and I'm ready to face the world.

One cool thing about an Ashtanga practice is that it's the same the world around.  There are a couple of different "routines" (for lack of a better word) but the one we do here is the most common practice.   I was looking on the web at yoga classes in Nova Scotia yesterday and noticed that a woman I've taken a few classes with in a nearby community teaches an Ashtanga class one night a week.  Her studio is in a boat house extended over Mahone Bay and is an amazing place to do yoga.  It has been added to my "to do" list of things for the summer--yet another reason to look forward to getting back to Chester!

Namaste!

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

I frequently jot down names of books that friends have recommended to me in a little notebook that I carry, often never to be looked at again.  When I was perusing the lists of the best books of 2010, The Imperfectionists was one of the titles listed, and it sounded familiar.   I paged through my notebook and, sure enough, there it was.  I can't remember who suggested it to me, but I'm glad they did because it prompted me to read this interesting work.

The Imperfectionists tells the story of a newpaper that is run out of Rome.  Each chapter is told from the perspective of a different person who works for the paper.  The history of the paper itself and the family that runs it is told in two or three page snippets between each chapter.  This construct gives Rachman the opportunity to create interesting characters without having to worry too much about advancing a unified story.  And each character definitely is interesting!   One of my personal favorites is Herman Cohen, the corrections editor (what can I say, after all those years of proofing documents, I can relate!)   Cohen is up to entry 18,238 in the "Bible," his name for the paper's style guide.   When Cohen is reminiscing about how he became the corrections editor, he muses that he had a knack for it--finally, "arcane knowledge and pedantry came in handy."  Here's an excerpt from his "Bible":

"literally.  This word should be deleted.  All too often, actions described as 'literally' did not happen at all.  As in, 'He literally jumped out of his skin.'  No, he did not.  Though if he literally had, I'd suggest raising the element and proposing the piece for page one.  Inserting 'literally' willy-nilly reinforces the notion that breathless nitwits lurk within this newsroom.  Eliminate on sight--the usage, not the nitwits.  The nitwits are to be captured and places in the cages i have set up in the subbasement.  See also:  Excessive Dashes; Exclamation Points; and Nitwits."

Some of the characters have a single phrase that defines their jobs.  Cohen's catch phrase, of course, is "credibility" (his attitude being similar to that of a partner at the law firm I worked at as a baby lawyer who flipped out--literally--if there was a typo in a 100 page document.)  The catch phrase for the obituary writer is "preparedness"; i.e., having a luminary's obit written in advance of their passing.  (As an aside, this is something that I've heard talked about at the dinner table here in Punta Gorda--I am not even kidding!)

I was enjoying the book so much that it took me some time to realize that each character experiences unhappiness at some level in his or her story.  In some cases this unhappiness stems from the choices made in day-to-day life; in others, it's a by product of life itself.  In this way, Rachman adds an unexpected depth to each character. 

Rachman's style of writing chapters that could stand alone is similar to that of Elizabeth Strout in Olive Kitteredge, which won the Pulitzer prize for fiction.  In my opinion, The Imperfectionists is a much more enjoyable book , and I'm looking forward to seeing what Rachman has in store for his readers in the future.

Canadian Brass, eh?

Canadian Brass

As people who know me will attest, I am pretty much a neophyte when it comes to music.  But I do love hearing Scott play the trumpet and was bowled over when I saw his brass quintet, C Street Brass (http://www.cstreetbrass.com/), play last year with organist extraordinaire Donald Sutherland.  Scott's trumpet instructor at Peabody is Joe Burgstoller.  Joe has been instrumental (pun intended) in Scott's development as a musician, helping him to become more centered and focused on his music.

Instructors at conservatories don't give up performing in order to teach (if they did, the students wouldn't be nearly as inspired) and Joe spent 7 1/2 years with Canadian Brass, a brass quintet that has been in existence since 1970.  So when I found out that Canadian Brass was playing at the Van Wezel Center in Sarasota, we got tickets, even though Joe is no longer with them.  Among other things, I thought this would be a good opportunity to understand more about what C Street Brass is hoping to do.  

The concert started with the musicians parading into the theater playing an upbeat number.  This is one way to launch a performance that seems to always take the audience by surprise and make them smile.  (C Street Brass has done this as well.)   The quintet then played a variety of compositions, with a bit of patter from the musicians introducing the numbers.   There was some Bach (including Air on a G String, which I realized was the processional at our wedding), some "Well Tampered Bach" arranged by Luther Henderson, who took Bach compositions and jazzed them up,  a suite of numbers from Porgy and Bess and even some Beatles.   Some numbers were great--the encore featured 24 year old Brandon Ridenour on the trumpet playing Amazing Grace and was, well, amazing--but there were a number of missed notes, some arrangements that we didn't care for (the Beatles numbers fell flat for me and the arrangement of Summertime for the French horn was a disappointment) and the patter felt a bit contrived in places.  Jay and I wondered afterwards if the sound in the hall was an issue as the group didn't have the power that we had expected.   I couldn't help but think that the performance would have been different if Joe were still in the group rather than Chris Coletti (who I think Scott could take in a blind audition).  At the end of the performance, I leaned over to Jay and mentioned that the trombone player had not had any solos.  Chuck Daellenbach, the only original member of the group, seemed to have heard me and made his way to the mike to thank the audience for attending.  He told us then that their trombone player was stuck in Toronto with the snow storms so a local trombone player had joined him.  I don't know if this threw the group off--he didn't seem to be a weak link to me--but it probably had some impact.