Book Report: Acqua Alta

60. Donna Leon, Acqua Alta (2009) (11/25/21)

This is the fifth book in Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti series (my review of the fourth is here). Here's what I wrote on Goodreads about Acqua Alta: "What I most enjoy about the Commissario Brunetti books are the details—of daily life in the streets of Venice, of familial upsets and resolutions, of Italian petty corruption, of the pleasure of a late-winter hot toddy in a canal-side bar. As usual, the mystery here was almost beside the point, but it gave the book something to do."

The plot involves stolen artistic treasures from China. We meet again a couple of characters from the first book in the series, the opera singer Flavia Petrelli and her American art historian lover Brett Lynch. The book's title refers to the annual flooding of Venice, which gets various characters wet and cold. There are a couple of deaths. The bad guys get their just deserts—I think. (This being corrupt Italy, it's not always easy to tell.)

I did dog-ear a page, and if I remember to tomorrow, I'll quote that passage. For now, though, here's book #60 in the bag.

Book Report: Tumble Home

59. Amy Hempel, Tumble Home: A Novella and Short Stories (1997) (11/23/21)

Amy Hempel is a minimalist, a weaver not of grand plots but of small, sometimes seemingly random details—of texture and feeling, unique voices and leaps of thought. There is a zen, in-the-moment quality to many of the stories in this short collection. I enjoyed it. 

The short stories are often very short (one, "Housewife," is a single sentence: 43 words). They narrate various versions of "home," some happy, some less so, some in process of becoming or dissolving, all reflective of the various faces that home can have. The title novella, a little over half of the book, has the greatest substance: consisting of a letter written by the resident of a psychiatric home to a famous painter whom she once had tea with, it flits from thought to thought, life event to life event, and introduces various characters, including several other residents (or "guests") of the home as well as the letter-writer's mother, also a painter, who committed suicide. The fragmented, more or less random nature of the letter made it a bit hard for me to piece together the details (e.g., how old was the letter-writer when her mother died?), but I was impressed with the kaleidoscope of a life that was presented. It felt consonant with a person "on the verge"—of sanity or insanity, of life or death, the letter-writer herself having flirted with the idea of suicide but finally, it seems, opting in favor of life. The naked honesty of the letter-writer is admirable. Here's how "Tumble Down" itself begins, the first full section:

I have written letters that are failures, but I have written few, I think, that are lies. Trying to reach a person means asking the same question over and again: Is this the truth, or not? I begin this letter to you, then, in the western tradition. If I understand it, the western tradition is: Put your cards on the table.
     This is easier, I think, when your life has been tipped over and poured out. Things matter less; there is the joy of being less polite, and of being less—not more—careful. We can say everything.
     Although maybe not. Like in fishing? The lighter the line, the easier it is to get your lure down deep. Having delivered myself of the manly analogy, I see it to be not a failure, but a lie. How can I possibly put an end to this when it feels so good to pull sounds out of my body and show them to you. These sounds—this letter—it is my lipstick, my lingerie, my high heels.
     Writing to you fills the days in this place. And sometimes I long for days when nothing happens. "Not every clocktick needs a martyr."

I was amused to find, in the random musings, a reference to the poll I wrote about the other day right here: 

. . . I imagine what kind of woman you like. A woman who contains a series of surprises? There are clues in the women you have had, though the thought of asking you what you like is like the team of artists who hired a marketing firm to find out what Americans want in a painting. The artists painted the result of the poll which found that what we want is a blue painting the size of a dishwasher with a biblical figure and landscape.

She took a few liberties there, but the gist is correct.

The title of the novella is explained thus:

Tumble home. It's a shipbuilding term I learned from Warren [a fellow "guest"]. It's the place on a ship that is, if I understand him, the widest part of the bow before it narrows to cut through water—it is the point where the water parts and goes to one side of the ship or the other. To me, the tumble home is the place where nothing can touch you.

Perhaps we all need a tumble home. And a reminder to cherish tiny moments of pleasure, revelation, or grace.

Noticing (LA)

We're spending a couple of days in LA. I used to come every few months in the early 2000s, until my mother died in 2008. Since then I've avoided the place, even though it's but a five-hour drive—the last visit may have been for a good friend's (old boyfriend's) wedding (his first: he was 64), or possibly for an exhibit at the Getty, one of my employers. 

I have a love-hate relationship with LA: it's home (well, Santa Monica is/was, forty years ago), it's a fascinating place full of culture and life. It's also full of traffic, some of it going way too fast—when it's not going 0 miles an hour. And the trash—this visit, I've noticed so much trash. I expect most of it is courtesy of wind, either weather-inspired or generated by rushing cars. But it feels discouraging. 

This morning we walked a couple of blocks from our motel to a Starbucks, and in the 405 underpass passed by a body under a cloth sleeping bag, plastic bags of belongings stacked nearby. On our transit back to the hotel, he hadn't moved. I wondered if he was dead, wanted to reach down and touch his naked ankle and make sure it was warm, but of course didn't. We reckoned we'll find out on tomorrow's coffee run. 

I do not say this to be cheeky or callous. I say it because I feel a certain anomie, distance, separateness in this "town." There is so much rushing, past, through, around. Though I know, too, that there are plenty of pockets of homely, peaceful quiet and neighborliness. You just don't see them as easily when you're an outsider looking in.

Though yes, on our various outings these last days—to dinner with family in Beverly Hills, to visit friends in Mar Vista, geocaching in the Valley—I did notice lovely details. And although I forgot to take pictures of the friends and family, I did take a few shots of the other loveliness. 

Oh, but wait: my niece's husband, Terry, posted this picture of our family dinner on Facebook, so I can end with that (from left to right, niece Erica, David, my brother Jim, moi, Erica's daughter Kimberley, and my sister-in-law Cathy—with Terry reflected in the mirror):

A drive down the coast, followed by a hike

Today was the last full day we'll all be together. And oh, what a good time we had! We started out doing an Adventure Lab (a geocaching thing), which took us, for the first time in David's and my 30-plus years in the area, to the Carmelite monastery that sits athwart Monastery Beach. We continued down the coast, stopping at Bixby Bridge—where I have various memories of dead bodies (I mean that literally: when I was on the search & rescue team, we were often called to Bixby Bridge to perform recoveries)—and ended up at Andrew Molera State Park, where we set off on a hike. Our initial plan was to do an 8-mile loop, but after a few miles we realized the wide path we were on really wasn't all that interesting—and oh look! a secret mystery trail that isn't on the official printed map but is shown on a weather-beaten metal sign (where a scratched X indicates You Are Here). So off we headed on Hidden Trail (aptly named), down to River Trail—both obviously used, but not maintained. It became a little adventure! So much more fun! And it got us back to the car in time to head to the Big Sur Bakery for lattes and cappuccinos, raisin danishes, ginger scones, almond croissants, and something hugely and chocolately decadent! We all agreed that it was a maximally enjoyable day.

Here are some photos:

Home of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns,
daughters of St. Teresa of Avila

Monastery Beach

View from Bixby Bridge

Andrew Molera beach

The motley crew: this is the "trail"
we ditched for the more adventurous one
—but still, it had awfully nice views

Only casualty of the day: a possibly broken toe (mine). For now, I'm trying to ignore it. (If it is broken, this will officially be my first broken bone ever.)

 

Randomness

This morning I received an alert for a new post in the blog The Green Study, by someone (Michelle) I don't personally know but whose musings I always find interesting, illuminating. In this installment she talks about how passé blogs are (according to, say, Substack, Instagram, and of course Twitter), and how she's fallen away from hers because of other activities—and yet she still finds value in the process. 

Me too. I do this for myself. I don't expect anyone to look (though I do apparently have a few friends who do—and thank you: you know who you are). This is simply a place for me to dump some of the contents of my brain, some random experience or bit of learning, or those darn book reports, into a place where I might even be able to find it again. I'm not trying to sell anything, or convince anyone of anything, or do anything more than simply express an interest in life.

Today, for example, I read three articles mentioned on Facebook that I found interesting and wanted to keep track of:

"This Is America's Most-Wanted Painting": An interesting discussion of, in this case, polling on what people want (or don't want) in art—a conceptual art project by Alex Melamid and Vitaly Komar from the 1990s. It also might be seen as an indictment of polling as actually telling us anything that we should base our lives on. (Think political polling, though that isn't covered here.)

"How Amy Tan Chose Flight over Environmental Fury," in Sierra magazine.

And Rebecca Solnit's "case for maps"—a simple FB post, but once it scrolls away, it's forever gone.

So I'm putting them here, where I will no doubt keep stumbling on them. (I do look back over my posts, which are, astonishingly, forever fresh!)

And while I'm at it, I'm going to note the link to a New Yorker article my SIL recommended, "The Day the Dinosaurs Died."  

Every time I throw out a stack of New Yorkers (they come every damn week; they stack up fast), I wonder what fascinating things I am throwing away, unconsumed, unacknowledged. But then of course, others will have read every single thing in those magazines, collectively. I envy them the richness they've acquired in doing so. I keep telling myself I should be more assiduous about reading our New Yorkers. David's good at it, though—they're his dinner-time reading—so they aren't going wasted.

And finally—because this, too, popped up today, and I want to stop and savor it at some point—here's Maria Popova's The Marginalian, focusing on an essay by Theodor Adorno, "Punctuation Marks."

Today, I could post photos of the awful flooding in Vancouver, B.C., which is currently cut off from the rest of Canada—reminding me of the time, years ago, Monterey Peninsula was cut off from the rest of the United States (though I only think of it as being cut off from the rest of the Central Coast), all roads leading out of the area being under water. Or I could talk about how yesterday we were caught in the middle of a high-speed car chase in the city of Soledad as we made our way to hike in Pinnacles National Park—only, of course, that story would be hyperbole, since we happened on the car chase only after the fact, thank goodness. Still, there were a huckuvalot of flashing lights and miles (okay, many, many yards) of yellow crime-scene tape, so it caught our attention, that's for sure.

But I can post a few photos from our hike yesterday, which was simply spectacular: a perfect day. Including all the condors we saw—and heard (they sound like jet engines when they plunge through the air). The condor photos aren't mine; they're from the National Park Service. But they need to be included.

A turkey vulture and a condor:
note the size difference

And that's me today. Ain't life grand? 

(Although that said, a good part of this post is occupied by climate change and endangered species, never mind planet-annihilating asteroids, so there's that.)

Book Report: Thank You, Omu!

58. Oge Mora, Thank You, Omu! (2018) (11/16/21)

First off: Omu is pronounced Ah-moo, and means "queen" in Igbo, one of the languages of Nigeria. It also, for some—such as the author of this book—means simply, "Grandma."

This is a charming story of a woman who is making a thick red stew, and as she lets it simmer, she sits and reads. Or tries to. Because as the stew simmers, its scent wafts out over the neighborhood, and people are drawn, irresistibly. First, a little boy. Then, a police officer. Then, the local hot dog vendor. To each of these, she gives a bowlful of her thick red stew. And they are soooo appreciative.

Throughout the day, people from all across the neighborhood knocked on Omu's door. She fed a shop owner, a cab driver, a doctor, an actor, a lawyer, a dancer, a baker, an artist, a singer, an athlete, a bus driver, a construction worker. . . . Even the mayor stopped by!

And each time they knocked, Omu shared.

You can surely see where this is going. I won't spoil it, except to say that in the end, "That dinner was the best she ever had."

The illustrations for this book are collage, created "with acrylic paint, china markers, pastels, patterned paper, and old book clippings." The effect is rustic, homely (in the best way), happy. I loved the look of this book.

Here are some samples:

This book is a celebration of a loving, giving spirit. What more matters, really?

An afternoon of murals in Sand City

Family—David's sister Patty and their brother Geoff, with his wife Heidi—are visiting, from Seattle and Oslo. David and I had been wondering what-all we could go do together. There are the obvious activities, the ones we do pretty much every time they come: a ramble through Pt. Lobos marine reserve, a trip down the Big Sur coast, a hike in Pinnacles National Park, a visit to the monarch butterfly trees. So how delighted was I to find a notice of a new geocache in nearby Sand City—a geocache celebrating the several dozen murals in that tiny (pop. 310) but vibrant town. It's a mix of small industry, a few funky residences, and artist studios. Eclectic! And yes, lots of murals—something new to explore!

So that's what we did this afternoon: wandered from mural to mural through Sand City, with a final stop at Post No Bills, a beer bar. (And we found the cache, no problem.) Here are a few photos I took along the way. (Click on them to see them large.)

I like the fact that this is a working-class
industrial area—full of fantastic art

This is an actual decoy; spot him in the above shot?

Not your ordinary roll-up door

This fellow was pleased that he found his way
into my photo—and my timing was good,
because he was just about to roll down the door

Who knew spiders had ribs?

Brother-in-law Geoff eyeing the money

I enjoyed the juxtaposition of xeriscape (actual)
and bottom-of-the-sea-scape (artistic)

Jimi and Janis shared adjacent real estate—fitting

My ninja-warrior sisters-in-law,
Heidi (left) and Patty (right)

Outside a sculptor's studio

At Post No Bills, Sand City

Two flights of four were sampled
(no one got drunk; this is just me being
accidentally impressionistic)

We ended with a trip to the supermarket:
five people, five baskets, variously full

The sibs: Patty, Geoff, and David