At this crazy busy time of year, don't you feel like jumping off the long pier into summer?
My daughter's second play opens tonight. She is playing one of the 3 Alice's in Alice in Wonderland at her school. This morning her straightener died so half of her hair is naturally curly and the other half is straight. The 2 other Alice's have naturally straight hair. I'm suggesting braids. They say break a leg, not a hair straightener! Her first play, Comedy of Errors, was free of unintended comic errors. For that she played a man. The girl has range. The below YouTube clip was recommended by her Shakespeare acting class buddies.
After all the rain we've been having, I'm posting some sunshine from early May.
Morse Mt. is more of a hill than a mountain. Our part of Maine is very flat. On a clear day, you can see all the way to Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. At first glance, the snow capped peaks appear to be clouds. Mt. Washington may be the tallest mountain in Northeastern USA, but it doesn't have a beach.
Seawall Beach is usually near empty because to access it, you have to climb two miles up and down Morse each way. It's an easy hike on a dirt road through wild woodlands and marshes. In late spring through summer the trail is very buggy.
This undeveloped oceanside beach stretches for a mile. At low tide you can wade to Popham Beach and walk another 3 miles on soft sand. May is a bit cold for swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, even on a sunny day.
I'm soaking up the cyber rays. This is the wettest spring that I can remember. At least all the rain makes it easier to work on a novel set in England. Cheers!
Directions to Morse Mountain and Seawall Beach in Phippsburg, Maine:
Take Rt. 1 North
At Bath, Exit High Street/Rt. 209
Right onto 209 toward Phippburg for 11.2 miles
Continue Straight onto ME 216/Small Point Road (drive past the Popham Beach turn off)
After 0.8 miles on Rt. 216, take a Left onto Morse Rd
Parking lot is on the left (no dogs or bikes allowed)
The trail is the old road and clearly marked
Hike 2 miles to Seawall Beach
Bring insect repellant in summer!
On the one sunny day of April vacation week, the drive took us three times as long. Next time we will take the train from Grand Central Station (20 minutes on the Metro North.)
The crowds, however, were heading to the Bronx Zoo. The Botanical Garden was nearly empty of people but bursting with magnolia blooms . . .
. . . and daffodils.
Cherry trees danced in the breeze.
Have you ever seen bluer skies in New York City?
Spring has finally come to Maine too: my forsythia.
Happy Birthday, Elizabeth, from the USA to France!
Blogger was down Wednesday-Friday and ate most of the comments. If your comments don't reappear as promised, I'll repost them from my email notifications. This was a system wide problem and many posts (not mine) disappeared as well. I've been waiting to visit your blogs until this bug was fixed.
I’ve just fallen in love with a brand new author, Téa Obreht. I’m not alone in my admiration. The New Yorker included Obreht in its recent list of 20 best American authors under 40. At only 26, Obreht is the youngest, and yet her voice has the maturity of a seasoned author.
The Tiger’s Wife (2011), Obreht’s debut novel, is set in a war-torn Balkans country. Obreht, now a New Yorker, was born in the former Yugoslavia. As a child, I once vacationed there and was appalled later at the violence that tore a nation apart. Although the author didn’t live there during the war, it felt like she had. She describes the horrors of World War II and the more recent conflicts in the Balkans with an unflinching eye that reminded me of the authors Geraldine Brooks and Michael Ondaatje.
As The Tiger’s Wife opens, Natalia takes a break from inoculating orphans to collect the physical and spiritual remains of her grandfather, who was also a doctor. His life is recalled in a series of fables mixed with local folklore, reminding me of the novels of Louise Erdrich and of Isabel Allende. His boyhood recollections include a love story between an escaped tiger and a deaf-mute woman (hence the title). There is also a “deathless man” who cannot die but predicts death and a bear hunter who becomes his own prey. Paradoxically, it is easier to believe these supernatural tales when a skeptical narrator offers alternative scientific explanations.
The story is well told:
“There was something familiar about the room and the village, a crowded feeling of sadness that crawled into my gut, but not for the first time, like a note of music I could recognize but not name.”
“I said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and regretted it immediately, because it just fell out of my mouth and continued to fall, and did nothing.”
As you can see, I finally figured out how to highlight quotations on my Kindle. They were very easy to retrieve from an automatic clippings folder. On my third ebook, I got so caught up in the story that the reading experience did not feel that different. After finishing, though, I bought a hardback copy for my home library and another for my parents as a visiting gift.
An e-book just doesn’t feel as permanent as a book. It’s like the difference between an email and a handwritten letter from a dear friend, although an ebook is much easier to read in bits on the go. Am I ever on the go: my daughter has lead roles in 2 plays and is playing lacrosse. I won’t be buying doubles of all my e-books, just my absolute favorites . . . my name is Sarah Laurence, and I’m a book junkie. It’s been 2 weeks since my last purchase. My bookshelves are groaning, and my Kindle is moaning.
The Book of Mormon is actually worth the hype. From the creators of South Park, this new Broadway musical guarantees to offend everyone. Mormonism joins the long list of religions ridiculed on South Park, but the Mormons themselves are portrayed sympathetically as big-hearted characters of faith. They are totally unprepared for the grizzly realities of a warlord-dominated village in Uganda. The troubles of Africa, from AIDS to dysentery and female circumcision, are the subject of catchy musical numbers.
Somehow The Book of Mormon manages to be both hilarious and culturally sensitive. The irreverent humor reminded me of Monty Python but American. My parents enjoyed it as much as my teenaged children. The whole audience was roaring with laughter throughout the entire production. Thank you, Marika, for telling me to get tickets before it opened as they are now very hard to get.
Our best pre-theater meal was at Sushi of Gari on 46th St. We strongly recommend the Omakase, chef's choice sushi tasting menu. What the small, narrow restaurant lacks in atmosphere it makes up for in extraordinary food served quickly. There are also cooked non-fish dishes for the less adventurous, but even my 16-year-old son loved this sushi. It was some of the best sushi we've had, even including Japan.
Another Broadway comedy well worth seeing is The Importance of Being Earnest. Set in late Victorian England, this is a timeless satire of the upper classes and social conventions. Brian Bedford both directs and plays the role of Lady Bracknell. Bedford did such an excellent job that my parents didn’t realize that he was a man. The acting overall was superb, especially David Furr as Jack/Earnest. The real star, however, was the playwright, Oscar Wilde. There were so many witty and memorable lines such as:
“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.”
“It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.”
It was especially good for my daughter to observe a man playing a woman because she is playing the romantic male lead in a Shakespeare play. It’s quite a challenge for a 13-year-old girl to become an Italian man. In NYC we scanned the sidewalks for men to imitate.
Back in Maine, one of her classmates tutored my daughter and her stage twin on how to walk like a guy. Another trick was getting boy boots for my graceful dancer. She now clunks around in her Doc Martens. There were also lessons in stage fighting, slapstick and fencing. I was prepared for my daughter to grow into a woman but not to see her become a macho man. Parenting has so many surprises!
For you fans of satire, David Furr (Earnest/Jack) and Santino Fontana (Algeron) perform in character "Jersey Shore Gone Wilde" in the YouTube clip below. Warning: adult language, this is the actual transcript of "Jersey Shore" from Oscar Wilde's perspective.
