In the past several weeks I have reviewed two Pulitzer Prize-winning plays by Lynn Nottage, Sweat and Ruined. Both were brilliant works, simple in conIn the past several weeks I have reviewed two Pulitzer Prize-winning plays by Lynn Nottage, Sweat and Ruined. Both were brilliant works, simple in concept and staging, complex in emotional resonance and social commentary. The prizes awarded for those later plays included the promise of her earlier plays, like this one, which first came to the stage when Nottage was thirty-nine.
It is 1905. An exceptionally-talented unmarried black seamstress, Esther, sews lingerie for wealthy white women and the black prostitutes they envy…envy for their bodies, their freedom, and the fact that the black women are getting nooky while the white wives are not. Esther is not especially pretty but hopes one day to marry. She carries on a long-distance romantic relationship by mail with a man she has never met. Eventually the brawny workman from Barbados who is digging the Panama Canal comes to New York.
The play is visually exciting: there is much color and sensuality in the fabrics Esther chooses for her craft, all bought from an orthodox Jewish salesman named Marks who has a weakness for a good story. He is also unmarried, and like Esther, is engaged to a person he has never met. Esther and Marks are attracted to one another through their mutual love of fabric, but could never consider an alliance, given that she is black and he is Jewish.
Special moments of emotional truth come when Esther describes her epistolary relationship with the man from Barbados to her best friend, Mayme, a beautiful woman wearing herself out working the Tenderloin district for uncaring brutes. Mayme teases Esther mercilessly for her naiveté when it comes to men, but suddenly “acknowledges Esther’s hurt” when the teasing veers into disrespect and Mayme takes Esther’s face between her hands. Moments of tenderness like these punctuate the work; everyone who knows Esther wants to protect her from hurt.
The play showcases black female friendship, and the close sense of community that forms around people of talent who earn little yet depend upon one another to hold one another up. We also see the souring of a marital relationship when the husband is dependent, and the exploitative and ultimately dismissive relationship between a black wage earner and her white mistress who doesn't see the power disparity in their relationship. The interactions between characters so familiar in our society, are nonetheless treated with great sensitivity, subtlety, and particularity.
The play takes only a couple hours to read and yet offers a lot of story and visual excitement…and sound! Mayme, it turns out, is a talented pianist who ends up turning tricks and playing ragtime to a syncopated beat.
Imagine Viola Davis in the role of Esther, which she did play off-Broadway in 2004 at the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York City, for which she won several awards and was nominated for several more.
As it turns out, the story has the ring of personal history: Lynn Nottage's own grandmother was a seamstress in New York and her grandfather was Barbadian who worked on the Panama Canal. The play is a reimagining of history, since few details are known.
This sure is a pretty book. For creatives and artists, it is positively inspirational. The book is mostly photographs of things which form patterns inThis sure is a pretty book. For creatives and artists, it is positively inspirational. The book is mostly photographs of things which form patterns in nature, and the photographs are colorized to make the patterns stand out. My favorite pictures are fine grains on flat surfaces that form different patterns when disturbed by sound waves. The astonishing wave patterns have been named Chladni figures.
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The other thing I thought one of the coolest thing I've ever seen is a picture of Fingal's Cave on the Isle of Staffa in Scotland. Cracks have formed highly regular six-sided posts of basalt. Something similar can be found at a place in California called Devil's Postpile: columnar cracks in the side of a hill. Unbelievably cool.
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There is a little commentary that goes along with the photos, but I found it inadequate. I'm sure there is a lot of science and math that should go along with understanding all the causes, etc., but I'd still like to see what's probably happening, for instance, when there are regular patterns on drying clay. No matter, I'll keep looking....more
This collaborative work features the poetry of Chris Abani and the oil paintings of Percival Everett, also a novelist. Published in 2010, the 7.5" x 1This collaborative work features the poetry of Chris Abani and the oil paintings of Percival Everett, also a novelist. Published in 2010, the 7.5" x 10" format with a wainscoting of gray in the bottom third of a white page gives plenty of space to display Everett’s work alongside numbered stanzas of what might be a single poem by Abani.
Desire is a theme Abani returns to again and again in his writing, and the first line of the first stanza holds that word aloft for us to contemplate:
“The way desire is a body eroding into a pile of salt marked with a crown of birds: and black.”
While I cannot be exactly sure what Abani meant by those lines, it sounds a great deal like death, outside, a feast for birds, blackening in the sun.
Desire and death, "all the terror we can bear", "survival", "hunger", "sorrow, of weight beyond measure", "drowned". These poems describe the "box of wood and canvas…red lines cut thick as paste."
"My first death was a butterfly."
The poems describe the perpetrators, so many over the years, over the continents: Auschwitz, Jim the Crow, Boer, Mau Mau, Rwanda.
"If I were a better man, I would have compassion."
and "I walk the stations of that pain with all the relish of a self-flagellating monk…"
Everett’s paintings are bold, saturated with color, reds, golds, deep indigo with definite forms and irregular thick black grids.
"Like Van Gogh it is what is not alive that lives here… …This knife pulls a jagged wish through oils thick as butter… …Percival’s heart bleeds on a stiff white canvas window."
And then, suddenly, three torsos, painted warm on a red background, without heads, arms or legs standing backs to us, graceful in form and beautiful, male and two females, without ethnicity, race, or national origin, undeniably alive, and in motion.
Abani finishes "It’s not hard to kill a childhood," and
"How nicely they’ve fixed the bullet holes in the walls, in Rwanda. Painted bright petals around some areolas."
Abani sees Rwanda in the torsos. We bring ourselves to the interpretation of paintings, photographs, literature. But now we must admit that Percival’s paintings no longer share the same horror of Abani’s vision. We must begin again, and see how Abani is caught in the web of his nightmare and cannot get free:
"There is a green one above my desk. Ripe, viridity fairer than lime and yet darker... ...Some nights, when I look up suddenly, I am back in a cell and fear chokes me and then my guilt...
...In the end, there are no names for red but fire, hydrant, apple, ball, heart, blood, sacrifice, and altar. Look, my nephew says, fire engine."
A remarkable collaboration by two remarkable artists. ...more
Joanna Basford, the biggest name in adult coloring books, has a spectacular new coloring book for adults called Lost Ocean: An Inky Adventure & ColJoanna Basford, the biggest name in adult coloring books, has a spectacular new coloring book for adults called Lost Ocean: An Inky Adventure & Coloring Book that brings to mind all manner of meditation mandelas, craft projects, color theories, visual recognition games, to say nothing of the wonders of the underwater world. The pictures are dense and detailed, far too complex for a child to manage, but perhaps just perfect for a teen or adult, perhaps even a much older adult, who wishes to try out a color palette, or concentrate on something unrelated to daily life.
Apparently the phenomenon of an adult coloring book market is large and growing, and Penguin provides a kit for groups of adults to work together on projects—a “community coloring club” is what they call these gatherings. They have also announced the release of a Coloring Club Kit which includes:
• Recipes for refreshments. • Playlist. Johanna Basford tells us she likes to draw to music by bands like The xx, and Florence and the Machine, “anything with too strong a beat interrupts the flow of the coloring.” We’ve compiled a special playlist to help unleash your creativity. • Ice Breakers to get your coloring club members chatting. • A special Q&A with the undisputed Queen of coloring books, Johanna Basford.
Truthfully, I was thinking these might be a good solution for adult community centers, but I can imagine a craftsperson finding the designs intriguing for color design. And finally, someone who needs design help generally might find inspiration here.
My sister is a docent at a seaside State Park that carries items like this in their museum store. Looks like a good seashore gift item generally, or a purchase a seaside Bed & Breakfast might find attractive. Keep your eyes peeled for this title in a bookstore near you this season, or buy it directly from the penguinrandomhouse.com website.
On my blog you will find a few sample pages and a giveaway posted until the book is released October 27. ...more
This is such a famous book. I suppose it does give some a leg up in interpreting the signals of modern society. I don't think I could have said so mucThis is such a famous book. I suppose it does give some a leg up in interpreting the signals of modern society. I don't think I could have said so much in so little space. However, it did not break any sonic barriers for me. Bright young thing that I am....more
Coughenour’s gorgeously cariacatured portrait gallery of rogues, created in collage and paint and described with lashings of verse, makes a reader hopCoughenour’s gorgeously cariacatured portrait gallery of rogues, created in collage and paint and described with lashings of verse, makes a reader hope one is dull enough to escape his notice. A stranger collection of curious fruits (and vegetables!) might be found in Oscar Wilde’s closet, but Coughenour comes close to immortalizing the more flagrant (fragrant?) personality types commonly found in Homo erectus.
Why oh why did Baudelaire come to mind as I read these jottings? I quickly scanned the wiki devoted to such things and came upon:
The principal themes of sex and death were considered scandalous. He also touched on lesbianism, sacred and profane love, metamorphosis, melancholy, the corruption of the city, lost innocence, the oppressiveness of living, and wine. Notable in some poems is Baudelaire's use of imagery of the sense of smell and of fragrances, which is used to evoke feelings of nostalgia and past intimacy. [#Wikipedia on Baudelaire]
Ah. But the poems are not quite of the same tone. There is a Baudelaire poem written in rhyming couplet To a Brown Beggar-Maid, but suffice it to say Coughenour’s little ABC’s for Grownups has all the hallmarks of a unique and recent observer of our human condition.
His pen is sharp as his eyes and wit, He carves the flesh and leaves the pit, Our very essence is what he’s after, He succeeds! But not without spatter.
In the first chapter our heroine Evelyn describes an early childhood encounter with shelves and shelves of towels in graduated colors, colors merging In the first chapter our heroine Evelyn describes an early childhood encounter with shelves and shelves of towels in graduated colors, colors merging almost imperceptibly into one another, though the color wheel. Right away I was listening. This is a book about women’s community formed around the craft of quilting. Several of the women were actually resistant to this notion in the beginning, which further endeared me to the author.
Things weren’t going especially well for Evelyn, who had recently suffered a divorce. She decided on a whim to move from Texas to Connecticut and when she found an old-fashioned drugstore on a back street in a small town, she brazenly decided to open a quilt shop. Things actually got worse for Evelyn, but she felt better about it all because she threw herself on the kindness of strangers, who became her community.
There is a thread here that one might recognize as Christian, and while I am practically allergic to accents of that kind, this one was actually quite pleasant, reassuring, and graciously undemanding. There is no pressure on this one, but since I am intimately acquainted with the vocabulary, I recognized it immediately as coming from strong religious conviction. I could think of several people who might enjoy this "chick-lit" story, though they ostensibly have no interest in quilting.
Bostwick did a good job with this first in the series, for she created characters we will be interested to follow. Even I, pagan soul that I am suspected to be, believe people can be kind and generous when it costs them little and returns them much. ...more
The story was not the fascination with this one, but I have a secret longing to make a quilt in the Hawaiian style. Ever since I saw the daffodil yellThe story was not the fascination with this one, but I have a secret longing to make a quilt in the Hawaiian style. Ever since I saw the daffodil yellow on butter-yellow quilt in the movie The Descendants, I was convinced these could be exquisite and modernized. I also think I might be able to pull off the applique, but I'm not sure. Lots of detail in here about how to do it all, so that's what I appreciated most. There were also details about how to set up a quilter's retreat, if anyone was interested. Sounds big, complicated, expensive...but could be a blast....more
It occurs to me I am not giving Chiaverini the credit she amply deserves for imagining this series so completely and with such a sense of fun. The recIt occurs to me I am not giving Chiaverini the credit she amply deserves for imagining this series so completely and with such a sense of fun. The recipes in this book, created by Sally Sampson, include some really special treats. The recipes are from the olden days and include massive amounts of butter, but one can imagine ways to improve the calorie count. Shortly after looking through the recipes I happened to watch an episode of Julia Child on television and discover that the pie crust recipe that includes a stick of butter AND six tablespoons of shortening for one crust comes from the queen of french cooking. Apparently the shortening adds that indefinable "something."
Even without using that particular recipe for the crust (one can use one's usual recipe), I have to admit that the Dutch Apple Pie recipe is a keeper, and one that I will use often in the future. It uses two types of apples (tart and sweet) and has an oatmeal streusel replacing the top crust. It adds 1/4 cup of heavy (or light) cream in with the apples, but at least 1/4 cup less sugar than most recipes. Really terrific when one wants something oatmeal-y or slightly different than the usual.
The other recipes are likewise innovative and delicious-sounding, and good for groups. I think this shows Chiaverini's sense of adventure, curiosity, and willingness to branch out and give her lots of kudos for pulling this one off.
A final note: I usually listen to Chiaverini's series on audio, but this one was only available to me in hardcover. I'm glad that was so because I discovered that the quilting blocks discussed in the story are displayed in the endpapers of the cover...this helps enormously when trying to imagine the angles and colors the characters use to create their blocks and how this has to do with the progress of the story. Even if one is not a traditional quilter, one has to admit that Chiaverini is a virtual library of styles and is a marvel in being to create her own blocks. ...more
The end papers of this hardcover contain the blocks discussed in this story and add immeasurably to the pleasure of imagining colors and piecing. ThisThe end papers of this hardcover contain the blocks discussed in this story and add immeasurably to the pleasure of imagining colors and piecing. This is the story of Thanksgiving and the day after, when the Elm Creek Quilters come together for a day of rest and quilting and planning. A favorite quote:
Sometimes it was okay to let things simmer untended. Some flavors took time to develop and rushing a dish to completion would ruin it, The best chefs, like the best quilters, cultivate creativity and patience--even when they didn't want to.
Not bad. I mean, I must be addicted to these things...I listen to one a week at least. At least I admit they keep my attention. Another reader says thNot bad. I mean, I must be addicted to these things...I listen to one a week at least. At least I admit they keep my attention. Another reader says they are not too taxing when one has brain fog. That is it, exactly. And I always feel I am at the mercy of libraries and publishers when it comes to audiobooks. I have to rely on them--I couldn't afford the number of audiobooks I listen to in a month. Besides, these are reliably at the library when I ask for them. Old enough to have been gone through already by fanatics, popular enough to be ordered when they come out by libraries anxious to please patrons.
This book goes back to Elizabeth & Henry's story of cross-country travel to the Sacramento Valley. They hit several snags, but end up almost where they started, financially-wise, ten or so years later. But the wedding quilt given to them on their departure is gone--sold to someone thinking of investing in the Meadowland Hills--a new development turning farmland into water-sucking condominiums.
This novel brings in the long-time California residents of Mexican descent, and a big scam that ruined many people seeking a new life "out west." Also tells of the big cats and elephants used in the movie industry of the time--and here's me wishing Chiaverini spent more time on that......more
The best one yet. Really liked the backstories to applicants to Elm Creek Manor. Real-life tensions between partners featured, rather than highlights The best one yet. Really liked the backstories to applicants to Elm Creek Manor. Real-life tensions between partners featured, rather than highlights of crusty personalities, though Diane managed to alienated everyone throughout. Admire the way Chiaverini managed the back and forth and connection between the characters, up to and including a real decision re who would be chosen to teach at Elm Creek. Congratulations on skillful weaving, Jennifer!...more
Really kind of spectacular work shown in this book--quilts inspired by or which have inspired the novels in this series. Again, this is not the kind oReally kind of spectacular work shown in this book--quilts inspired by or which have inspired the novels in this series. Again, this is not the kind of quilting I do, but I do love to see what people have accomplished, and I love to steal ideas and techniques. What I really wanted was to see the Lilac-and-Elm-Leaves quilt mentioned in Book #5, The Quilter's Legacy, and the bridal quilt mentioned in Book #6, The Master Quilter. Both are shown in detail, and they are impressive. Great fun....more
I rather enjoyed this book in the series. Each of the characters serially tells what is happening in their lives at the same point of time, and we getI rather enjoyed this book in the series. Each of the characters serially tells what is happening in their lives at the same point of time, and we get the persepctive of their behaviors from the others. Chiaverini did well with this technique: there is enough diversity of activity in everyone's lives to add depth to the story rather than thin it out. On the last few pages and still am not entirely sure why the story is called The Master Quilter, but presume it refers to Sylvia Compson, for whom everyone is making and collecting squares for a bridal quilt. I have, actually, seen the photographs of a quilt made in that style in Chiaverini's Return to Elm Creek: More Quilt Projects Inspired by the Elm Creek Quilts Novels. It is as gorgeous as one might think, especially when viewed close-up. ...more
Chiaverini has a fertile imagination and she makes up a backstory for Sylvia Compton with something like love. Sylvia is getting a little better in inChiaverini has a fertile imagination and she makes up a backstory for Sylvia Compton with something like love. Sylvia is getting a little better in interpersonal relations, now that she is ready to marry (and does, during the course of this story) but she occasionally goes off the rails and says exactly what she thinks. At her age, she should be entitled to this, but it is rather hard to take, regardless.
The quilts (twelve stitches to the inch!) sound lovely, especially the lilac and elm. Even the seven stitches to the inch that Sylvia is able to produce sound like a typo. What kind of needles yield that kind of stitch length? I might get five on a good day....more
This book was given to me as a gift with the proviso that I return it to the giver when finished. I read it quickly and then read it again slowly, oveThis book was given to me as a gift with the proviso that I return it to the giver when finished. I read it quickly and then read it again slowly, over a period of months. It has a simple, clear style: the short paragraphs remind one of a literally simple but intellectually dense Buddhist discussion on wakefulness and being. Author Bender makes a journey that many of us might make in a lifetime: from a cluttered, busy, “what am I missing?” lifestyle to one that is far less dense. “You are missing nothing important,” a Buddhist might say.
One day many years ago, Bender the artist saw some old Amish quilts used to showcase men’s tweed clothing in an artful display in a boutique on Long Island. She went back several times to view the quilts, and realized that there was something understated and truly unique in the style:
”Odd color combinations. Deep saturated solid colors: purple, mauve, green, brown, magenta, electric blue, red. Simple geometric forms: squares, diamonds, rectangles. A patina of use emanated from them…
The basic forms were tempered by tiny, intricate black quilting stitches. The patterns—tulips, feathers, wreaths, pineapples, and stars—softened and complemented the hard lines, and the contrast of simple pattern and complex stitchery face the flat, austere surface and added dimension.
At first the colors looked somber, but then—looking closely at a large field of brown—I discovered that it was really made of small patches of many different shades and textures of color. Greys and shiny dark and dull light brown, dancing side by side, made the flat surface come alive. Lush greens lay beside vivid reds. An electric blue appeared as if from nowhere on the border.
The relationship of the individual parts to the whole, the proportion, the way the inner and outer borders reacted with each other was a balancing act between tension and harmony…How could a quilt be calm and intense at the same time?”
Bender the artist sought, and found, a way into the community that could produce such work. She lived with different groups of Amish for periods of weeks over a period of years in Iowa and Ohio. She learned that the larger group called “Amish” has different sects which live differently, but generally it is a group which focuses on living as a community, each producing what it can so that the whole functions harmoniously.
She did work on a quilt or two, but mostly she was involved in understanding the lifestyle in which someone can produce art but whose work is as prized as someone else. This joy in the process, rather than the finish or the glory, seemed profound to Bender. She developed an attachment for the nine-patch pattern, and in one of the last chapters, pulls her experiences together in nine observations that serve to calm and direct her when life threatens to subsume her once again.
1. Patch #1 VALUING THE PROCESS/VALUING THE PRODUCT 2. Patch #2 LIVING IN TIME 3. Patch #3 CELEBRATING THE ORDINARY 4. Patch #4 HOME 5. Patch #5 COMMUNITY 6. Patch #6 LIFE AS ART 7. Patch #7 LIMITS AS FREEDOM 8. Patch #8 POWER OF CONTRAST 9. Patch #9 CHOICE
Bender has worked to eliminate the clutter from the book, so it is calming to read and has many one-liners that make good daily fare for musing and developing one’s spiritual muscle. One of my favorites: “I learned there is nothing simple about the ninepatch.”
The line drawings decorating the book are just the right touch, and the color plates chosen for the removable dust jacket also leave one looking and thinking deeper. All in all, Bender has succeeded in creating something lasting that can help us get through the bad “patches” in our own lives, and seek the serenity of being at home in our own skins. “Miracles come after a lot of hard work.” A joy, and a classic....more
Now this is a great summer read. Not only is it beautiful to hold (Ecco imprint, thick deckled pages, only 336 pages in a 5-5/15 x 8 inch format), butNow this is a great summer read. Not only is it beautiful to hold (Ecco imprint, thick deckled pages, only 336 pages in a 5-5/15 x 8 inch format), but the words just made me want to slow down and savor. The characters in this book were making their dreams come alive: a wealthy woman uses her ample funds to get her hands dirty restoring an old villa on a wind-swept mountain in Tuscany, and a penniless, parentless artist finds her calling restoring the paintings of old masters in Rome.
Cochineal, indigo, white lead, cinnabar, umber, ocher, kermes and weld: the words bring their own smell, their own color. Add Rome, Tuscany, love, passion, wealth and youthful beauty in the pre-war years and the combination is irresistible. That the dreams of both women are blasted apart by World War II and their relationships with men adds depth to the drama, and it continues very near to present day, when the artist looks back and has us question again the nature of great art. Provenance in terms of art, it turns out, is almost all its value.
According to David Leavitt, writing a review for the New York Times earlier this year, the provenance of Olafsson’s story is deeply rooted in the real-life adventures of Iris Origo, about which she wrote in a nonfiction memoir called War in Val d’Orcia. Leavitt sounds a little incensed in his review that Olafsson did not emphasize this “borrowing” and writes
In 1993, I was sued by the poet Stephen Spender after I wrote a novel, “While England Sleeps,” based on an episode from his memoir “World Within World.” If I learned anything from that unhappy experience, it was that it’s essential for writers to acknowledge their sources fully and without hedging.
That’s fine with me. For writers, painters, innovators, anybody who borrows from another: Acknowledge the source and keep the provenance clear, but…art historians and wordsmiths don’t kill me…I believe great art can be created borrowing techniques, styles, and yes, the stories, of others and it doesn’t diminish the work in any way. And that is really the central question of the book—you’ll see when you read it.
So yes, this is a fine book when you don’t want a massive tome and just want beautiful words arranged artfully on the page. ...more
This series does have some quilting in it, but it is really about relationships. And any relationship that lasts a long time goes through rough patcheThis series does have some quilting in it, but it is really about relationships. And any relationship that lasts a long time goes through rough patches. Hence my chagrin to listen to arguments between two of the main characters...I just wanted to get OUT of there. But the series is a good one...lots of characters, lots of stories and some advice thrown in. Wish a line drawing of the quilts was attached...I don't know if the print copy has them, but that would be a big draw. I am listening to it read by Christina Moore, and she is wonderful, as always. I don't know what her accent is--perhaps Pennsylvania? At first I thought midwest, but she reminds me of soemone who is not a midwesterner.
Anyway, the story ends up with a big suprise at the end, but perhaps it is a little too fantastic. One reads fiction to skip the reality part, I guess, but this was perhaps too good to be true....more
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