24 Saturday Nov 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
For the past three years, readers of this website have kindly sent in their choices of books they’ve particularly enjoyed over the previous 12 months. I’ve then compiled the list and posted it at the end of December in 2009, 2010, and 2011. The result has been a list of widely varying fiction and nonfiction books that has been a useful reference for many of us.
As I ask for favorite reads this year, here are a few guidelines that may help in drawing your list and in making my compilation easy:
21 Wednesday Nov 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
Tags
" "The Silver Linings Playbook, "Chasing Ice", "West of Memphis, Bradley Cooper, David O. Russell, Documentary Film, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro
West of Memphis *****
Another documentary that as it progresses you just keep wondering about our country.
This one is about three teenagers who are accused of the brutal murders of three young kids in West Memphis, Arkansas. Initially, it seems as if they are guilty as charged, particularly because one of the three ‘confesses.’ They are convicted, and one of the three is sentenced to death.
Then, because of the on-going efforts of some people who don’t believe they are guilty, gradually evidence is gathered which shows that the police and the prosecutor got it all wrong.
Nevertheless, the three teenagers spend 18 years in jail as the powers that be do not want to own up to their mistake(s).
See it to learn the final outcome.
(Once you’ve seen the film, take a look at this article that brings you up-to-date on the latest details of what has happened since the documentary was made.)
The Silver Linings Play Book ****
Terrible title. Good film. Good acting.
After Pat Solatano (Bradley Cooper) has spent eight months in a state mental institution, his mother ‘springs’ him, and he returns home, hoping to rebuild his life and get back together with his wife. But Pat refuses to take his medication for his bipolar condition. His family, particularly his father (Robert De Niro) who has problems of his own (OCD), hopes he will settle down and just be ‘normal.’
Enter Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), who is going through a difficult time herself after the death of her husband. Tiffany offers to help Pat get back in touch with his estranged wife, but for a price.
The rest you’ll have to see for yourself.
Writer/Director David O. Russell has made a romantic comedy that is filled with good performances by all of the main actors (particularly Jennifer Lawrence), some good humor, a story that surprises, and one that we’d like to believe could happen.
* * * * *
That’s it for films for now, tho we are going to see the new James Bond film tomorrow between our Peking Duck Thanksgiving preparations and the actual ‘event.’ We always see one of the ‘big’ new films on Thanksgiving afternoon and on Christmas Day. I gather some of the kinder (not the grand kinder) are also going to see the latest Twilight foolishness (one was enough for me).
Finally, I have it on reliable authority (ML) that Chasing Ice is a ‘great’ movie.
20 Tuesday Nov 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
How is it that I’d never known about Louise Erdrich?
The Louise Erdrich who just won the National Book Award. The Louise Erdrich who was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The Louise Erdich who has written 14 novels, seven children’s book, three books of poetry, and three non-fiction books. The Louise Erdrich who has been winning writing awards since the mid 80s, including a National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction (for Love Medicine (1984) and an O. Henry Award, for the short story “Fleur” (published in Esquire, August 1986).
It’s one thing never to have read a book by a given author. It’s whole other level not to even know about an author with the acclaim of Louise Erdrich.
I don’t know how I missed her. But I’m delighted that my friend Robin Rice, whom I first met in the Peace Corps 47 years ago and with whom I keep in touch via MillersTime, told me about Erdrich recently.
So when I was at our wonderful local independent bookstore the other day, getting a copy of Oliver Sacks’ new book Hallucinations, I happened to see Erdich’s novel The Round House in a display of the 2012 National Book Award winners.
Now I am getting acquainted with Louise Erdrich. I have read a bit about her, have watched the wonderful 2010 Bill Moyers’ interview with her (see below), and have just finished her latest book.
The setting for The Round House is on the North Dakota Ojibwe reservation, and the time period is the late 1980s. It is the story of what happens to the Coutts family (mother, father, and son) as the result of a terrible incident that happens to Geraldine, the mother. Told largely through the eyes of the son, 13-year old Joe, the family is forever changed. As Judge Antone Coutts, the father, tries to console his wife, keep her safe, and looks for justice, Joe looks for vengance.
What follows is a detective story (of sorts), a coming of age story, a story of racial injustice, and a tragedy. In telling this story, Erdrich grabs the reader at the outset and doesn’t let go. Not a polemic, it nevertheless informs and teaches. And it is beautifully written.
In some ways, Erdrich’s The Round House reminds me of Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior. They each tell a story that entertains and educates. They each write about realities of contemporary life in a part of our society most of us do not know well. Both use their wonderful writing skills to create characters and stories that go beyond just entertainment. They may be writing fiction, but there is an honesty and a reality to their writing that make these stories fresh and meaningful and not easily forgotten.
Ah, I can’t wait to read more of Erdrich. But which one to read next?
If you have read other Louise Erdrich novels or writings that you have enjoyed, please let me and others know which ones you particularly liked.
If you do not know any of Erdrich’s work, you might want to start by watching and listening to the interview Bill Moyers lovingly conducted with her two years ago.
Actually, even if you know of Erdrich, still check out the interview.
19 Monday Nov 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
Tags
" "Lincoln, " "Silver linings Playbook, " Daniel Day-Lewis, " Films to See, "A Late Wuartet, Argo, Ben Affleck, Stephen Spielberg, The Sessions
A Late Quartet ****
I suspect this movie will not be easy to find nor will it be around long, which is a shame. It’s a good one.
A Late Quartet is the fictional story of the four members of the “Fugue Quartet,” a string quartet that has been together for 25 years. Now, as the one older member finds he is facing a medical problem that will require him to withdraw from the group, all hell breaks loose for the other three musicians.
Some of the ensuing problems are more realistic than others, but I found the film involving and thought provoking. Plus, the portrayal of what it is like for four artists to work together, and how that differs from life for solo artists, is a side story that is fascinating too.
Good performances from all four actors, starting with Philip Seymour Hoffman and including Christopher Walken, Imogen Poots and Wallace Shawn.
Lincoln *****
Despite the title, this film is not a biography (‘bio-pic’).
It is something quite different.
It’s about a short, very specific time in Lincoln’s presidency, the time leading up to and the passing in the House of Representatives of the 13th Amendment, the outlawing of slavery. In the process of telling that story, director Spielberg gives us an absorbing and captivating portrait of the man who already has had more books written (16,000) and more movies made (300) about him than any other single individual.
The film is not perfect. I suspect Lincoln scholars will have some bones to pick with it. Also, so too will movie critics, no doubt.
But don’t let that prevent you from seeing Lincoln.
What we see is an appealing and steely acting performance by Daniel Day-Lewis who ‘inhabits’ the body of the president in such a way that you feel you are ‘there’ at a specific time in our history.
We see not only the principled Lincoln but also the crafty, political Lincoln who will do whatever he must to accomplish his goal of getting slavery outlawed before the end of the Civil War. Lincoln uses all his personal power(s) and all the power(s) of his office to accomplish this goal.
Actress Sally Fields also gives a strong performance in her portrayal of Molly, as the president refers to his wife Mary Todd. So too do other members of the cast, particularly Tommy Lee Jones as Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, and David Strathaurn as Secretary of State William Seward, to name just the very best of a very strong cast.
Lincoln is a wordy (I mean that positively), suspenseful, and engrossing film about one slice of A. Lincoln’s presidency — his choice to end slavery before ending the Civil War. In deciding to focus on this aspect of Lincoln’s presidency, Spielberg does what good artists, photographers, and others do when they show us just a small portion of a bigger picture.
(Note: Perhaps the best of the reviews and comments on Lincoln that I’ve seen is this column, Six Footnotes, in the current The New Yorker magazine.
Argo ****1/2
If you’re old enough to remember the American hostage crisis of 1979 when Iran held 52 of our Embassy employees captive for 444 days, you may have missed another aspect of that story that occurred at the same time.
I know I did.
Six American Embassy employees escaped just before the Iranians broke into our embassy. They hid in the Canadian Embassy, and the CIA was tasked to get them out of the country.
Argo is a film that tells the ‘story’ of what happened to that attempt to smuggle the six out of Iran before the Iranians realized they were there.
It’s an engrossing, captivating story, directed Ben Affleck, who is also the lead actor in the film.
* * * * * *
(Note: Our Sunday morning Cinema Club gave the film The Sessions a positive rating {Excellent or Good} of 97.5, an extremely high rating for this group of Sunday morning film lovers. For Silver Linings Playbook, the group’s positive rating was 89.4%.
I too thought The Sessions was outstanding – reviewed on MillersTime 10/23/12 and ‘revisted’ on 10/29/12.
My mini-reviews of The Silver Linings Playbook and a new documentary, West Memphis, will be coming soon.)
16 Friday Nov 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
One woman: Dellarobia.
One family: The Turnbows
One small town: Feathertown, TN
Fifteen million butterflies.
And so Barbara Kingsolver sets out to tell a story that both entertains and informs.
A scientist by her education and training and a writer by profession, Kingsolver takes on hard tasks in her writing. She always seems to be pushing to create something new.
In Flight Behavior, her latest novel (she’s published 14 books, nine of them novels), she tells the story of Dellarobia Turnbow, wife, mother, daughter-in-law, friend, and lost soul, until something startling happens that gradually results in her emergence from her frustrating life.
13 Tuesday Nov 2012
Posted in Family and Friends
Abby had her second birthday on Sunday.
Eli will be four in January.
It’s going fast.
12 Monday Nov 2012
Posted in The Outer Loop
When friend Richard Margolies many months ago urged me to join him in going to Ohio to help canvass for the President, I quickly agreed. Richard had previously canvassed in PA, VA, IN, and OH and believed the balance of this election depended upon who would win in Ohio.
So, on Friday morning, Nov. 2, 2012, as the sun was just coming up, RM, who had driven to Ohio two days earlier to begin his canvassing, picked me up at the Columbus airport to begin a six day period I will never forget.
Starting Friday and continuing until Tuesday at 7:15 PM, we knocked on doors in the Milo-Grogan neighborhood (1.6 square miles, 2,610 inhabitants) of Columbus, a largely African-American neighborhood that in some places seemed to me like an ‘urban Appalachia.’
Our task was specific: we were to get Obama supporters and registered Democrats who had voted in previous elections to go to the polls and cast their ballots.
Each day we were given lists of individuals with their street addresses and a script and literature. Then, from 9:30-noon, 12:30-4 pm, and 4:30-7:30 pm, we knocked on doors, spoke with those who answered, left literature, and marked our lists, noting who had already voted (early), who had returned (or not) their mail in ballot, and who needed to be encouraged to get to the polls.
01 Thursday Nov 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
I know next to nothing about contemporary art.
And that might be giving myself too much credit.
Probably the last period in art that I understood was the Impressionists. Since then, I’m clueless.
That is by way of introduction and warning to today’s post about an exhibit at Washington, DC’s Hirshhorn Museum.
My sister-in-law was in DC recently, and I hold her responsible, and thank her, for getting me to this exhibit: Ai Weiwei – According to What?
01 Thursday Nov 2012
Posted in Go Sox
This year was not a good one for MillersTime baseball prognosticators.
In most of the Baseball Contest categories, except for how well the Yankees would do, contestants failed miserably to come even close to what happened this year.
Overwhelmingly, you said the Angles would beat the Phillies in the World Series, the Nats would improve to 85-77 (not bad but not close as they were 98-64), and the best you could do on choosing Division leaders at the All Star break was three out of six.
The one area that had some life was in Contest #1, making a prediction about the 2012 year. There were 10 predictions that came true, and in a close vote, readers gave the victory to the prediction that the Nats would be in the playoffs.
Here then is a summary of the winners for 2012:
01 Thursday Nov 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
Good news:
Barbara Kingsolver has a new novel, Flight Behavior, which will be published Nov. 6, 2012.
More good news:
She is appearing as part of Politics and Prose’s authors series. On Nov. 8 she will speak in DC at Washington National Cathedral at 7:30 PM.
And even more good news:
I have three extra tickets for folks to join me. Let me know by leaving a Comment below or by sending me an email: Samesty84@gmail.com. I will be away from Nov. 2-6 (canvasing for you-know-who), but I should have access to both MillersTime and my email and will let you know if one of the three free tickets is yours.
Kingsolver is one of my favorite living authors, in part because she is willing to try very different things in her writing. Think of The Bean Trees, Animal Dreams, The Poisonwood Bible, Prodigal Summer, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and The Lacuna. And those are just the ones I’ve read. Including Flight Behavior, she has now published 14 books.
Let me know if you want to join me.
31 Wednesday Oct 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
Tags
Astrid & Gaston, Best Restaurants, Cebiche, Central Ristorante, Ceviche, Chexz Wong, Javier Wong, Lima
The main reason I can think of to recommend a few days in Lima, Peru (other than if one’s spouse has a speaking engagement there) is to enjoy the marvelous food ‘revolution’ that has taken over that city.
Ask a dozen individuals who either live in Lima or know it well for the name of their favorite restaurant, and I bet you’ll get 12 different recommendations, or at least 10 different ones.
We had three outstanding meals and two other good ones over a period of four days.
Put these three restaurants on a list for when you find yourself in Lima: Central (beware the Pisco Sours – they’re strong and two will loosen your tongue, etc.), Astrid & Gaston (try the tasting menu), and Chez Wong (see below). You will be stunned by the presentations and even more by the tastes of what you are served. You can’t go wrong with any of these three expensive but memorable restaurants.
One of the three, however, is so unusual and so outstanding that if you are in Lima and do not go there, consider yourself to have made an horrendous mistake.
30 Tuesday Oct 2012
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest, Family and Friends
(Tues., Oct. 30, 12:30 PM – The post below was written and sent to me just now by David P. Stang, long-time friend and faithful MillersTime reader.)
That malefic millibar drop spooked the cats. Their eyes rolled around without focus. The hair stood up on their backs. They’d suddenly hiss and leap into the air then run crazily. Bounce off walls. Climb under quilts. Curl into fetal shape and quiver.
In cat consciousness the careening millibars portended Armageddon. This was before any local precipitation. Before rising winds. Before the sky darkened. In fact, two days before disaster descended they saw Sandy’s eye.
They must have foreseen life support systems shutting down. Hospitalized geriatrics choking to death. Subways, tunnels and roads flooding. Sewers barfing out millions of drowned rats. Megatons of trees down. Bridges closed. Thousands of automobiles underwater. Public transport shut down. Transformer stations blown up in explosions of blue light. Millions of residences and businesses without electric power. Communication systems destroyed. Even the New York Stock Exchange became a battle casualty. Governors and mayors dishing out situation reports while Presidential candidates disciplined themselves not to exploit Sandy’s gift. Still fear and panic reigned.
The cats saw it coming. Feline foreknowledge was spot on.
Whistling winds, crashing down cloud bursts wailed like banshees all night long. Sandy’s eye, however, passed over like the locusts did in Ancient Egypt. Who survived? Who thrived? And how?
The survivors did so with reliable shelter by merely eating, drinking, defecating, sitting, standing, sleeping, bathing and dressing.
The survivors who lived on to thrive did so with education, training, skills, courage, vision, discipline , tenacity and some luck.
But of all the thrivers and survivors who ended up living meaningful, joyous lives? Those receptive to insight. Those with compassionate and loving hearts. Those who prefer giving to taking. Those whose mainstay is gratitude.
Yet in fairness, all these good results require higher millibars. Accordingly, without drooping millibars cats can’t help you as portenders. Their foreknowledge runs only on low millibars. Only then do they roll their eyes, let their hair stand up, make hissing noises, run crazily, bounce off walls, climb under quilts and go totally fetal.
29 Monday Oct 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
Often when I see a film that is either called a ‘documentary’ or based on ‘a true story,’ I find myself wanting to know how true the film really is. The question that repeatedly comes to my mind is “am I being manipulated/mislead by the film?” I want to know the ‘truth.’
And then the next question arises, “Does it really matter if the film departs from the reality, from the facts?
In a film I recently saw and recommend, The Sessions, I again experienced those questions.
If you have seen the film, then here is an article written by Mike O’Brien and an interview with him you may find of interest. Together, they add to The Sessions and raise questions about the film.
On Seeing a Sex Surrogate, Mike O’Brien, The Sun Magazine, May, 1990. This article served as the basis for The Sessions and goes a bit beyond the film
Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien, by Jessica Yu, a 35-minute documentary that is largely an interview with Mike O’Brien in 1994. It won an Oscar in 1966 for Best Documentary Short Subject. (There are three 15-second ads that interrupt the video, but stick with it. It’s worth it.)
Your thoughts?
28 Sunday Oct 2012
Posted in Go Sox
Tags
(The author of the poem below is Troy Lovett, a retired high school math teacher living in Louisville. The poem came to me through a long time Kentucky friend who regularly sends baseball and other good, current writing, and I think received a copy of the poem in a recent email.)
The Last Days of September
The last days
of September carry with them a sense
of change; a longing for what is
fleeting; a remembrance of what is no more;
and an awareness of approaching winter.
Days are filled with a little of all that–warm afternoons, chilly nights, bluer skies,
less daylight, and warm cider.There is urgency in the precious last days
of autumn. Squirrels and birds scurry to beat the night’s cold and we
unpack winter sweaters and knitted scarves and brace for change.The greatest game
follows its inevitable path toward conclusion with
athletes playing through the wear and tear of a long season, trying to
find the resources to make one final push
for glory. For some it is the morning of a promising career; for others
the evening of a journey through paradise passing far too soon.For the players, and for us,
we sense, as at no other time,
that the game goes on and we are fleeting;
that what is real is much more than what is seen;
that life is a prelude to a greater glory;
that we have been blessed in incalculable ways
to have played another season; and that life
and the game are gifts from a Father’s love.There are lessons to be learned from
late September days.Sleep warm, my dear friend.
28 Sunday Oct 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures
My wife Ellen and I returned recently from a four night-five day trip to the Peruvian Amazon.
We flew from Lima to Iquitos where we were met by a guide from Aqua Expeditions. We then drove to board their 12-cabin, 24 passenger boat where we had wonderful food, air conditioning, hot showers, and stayed in a cabin with windows that allowed us to look out on the rain forest as the boat traversed the river for a total of 450 miles (round trip).
During the day we would venture out on small skiffs with one of three wonderful guides, sometimes walking in the rain forest for two or three hours, other times just exploring small tributaries and observing both wild life and human life along the way.
Most of our fellow travelers were ‘bird folks,’ and they were delighted with every flapping and every sighting. We mostly just enjoyed being in a very different environment and learning about a world we did not know.
Here are 16 of Ellen’s pictures:
