Archives

Books

Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “A Spot of Bother” by Mark Haddon

November 16, 2012

Image via Amazon.com

“A Spot of Bother,” by Mark Haddon, tells the story of George, who has just retired and his wife, Jean, who finds it rather inconvenient to her extracurricular love life to have him underfoot. They have two adult children. Katie, their daughter, is divorced with a very young son. She is engaged to Ray, whom everyone, (even Katie, though she is reluctant to admit it) feels is not quite suitable for their family. Her brother, Jamie, is also struggling romantically, unable to commit to his boyfriend, Tony. And Jamie believes that neither parent has come to terms with his sexuality. Oh, and George is bothered by a dry patch of skin on his torso. His doctor assures him it is nothing to worry about, but George is convinced it is skin cancer, and worries frantically, but quietly and to himself.

Keeping things to himself is typical of the way each character avoids problems, and as a result there are a lot of secrets, and a lot of fragmentation, in this family. Since it is also a tight-knit family all of these issues are played out in the months leading up to the wedding of Katie and Ray. Katie fights with Ray, Jean, George, and Jamie; Jamie and Tony break up. The wedding is off and then on again; family members have trouble keeping up, but the reader won’t. Jean and George don’t so much fight as wage a somewhat unconscious war of attrition against each other. George quietly loses his mind, but not so anyone really notices. Fortunately, everyone loves Katie’s son Jacob, who steals almost every scene he marches through.

Haddon tells his story through short, choppy fragments, shifting points of view from one to another of his protagonists. (Happily he is not so cute as to include Jacob’s version of events, though sometimes his mother relates Jamie’s thoughts.) Haddon is a very funny writer. Here’s one example:

Jamie wondered, sometimes, if Tony had been a dog in a previous life and not quite made the transition properly. The appetite. The energy. The lack of social graces. The obsession with smells . . .

Eventually, George takes actions that everyone must notice, and the responses to them allow the story to wind down to a satisfying conclusion. And, ultimately, Haddon takes a very British approach to psychology: when it is time to stop behaving in a certain way George, well, stops. (Here we call this cognitive-behavior therapy.)

Haddon, whose previous book was “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time,” raised expectations with that unusual work. He has more than met them here. Do you agree? Let us know in the comments.

Have a book you want me to know about? Email me at asbowie@gmail.com. I also blog about metrics at here.

From the Web

News

BRIC Rotunda Gallery Art & Design Show “On Purpose”

November 7, 2012

Starting next week, BRIC’s Rotunda Gallery will mount a show “On Purpose: Art & Design in Brooklyn 2012.” The show, curated by Risa Shoup, will feature work from Brooklyn-based designers, architects and visual artists addressing the environmental challenges of contemporary urban living. All of the work will addresses the issue of sustainability while balancing the desire of aesthetic beauty. More information is available at BRIC’s website.

The Rotunda Gallery is located at 33 Clinton Street in Brooklyn Heights. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 12-6 pm. Admission is free. There will be an opening reception Friday, November 16, 7-9 pm. The show will run through December 21.

From the Web

Books

Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “The Forgiven” by Lawrence Osborne

November 2, 2012

Image via Amazon.com

We live in a culture that is mobile and global, and we travel through exotic locales feeling that we are privileged and cultured. The premise of Lawrence Osborne’s novel “The Forgiven” that people will travel from Europe to a three-day party in the central Moroccan desert seems eminently reasonable. Jo and David Henniger have taken a plane to Spain, a ferry to Africa, and rented a car to attend a party. David’s school friend Richard Galloway and his partner Dally Margolis are throwing an elaborate weekend party at their Moroccan retreat, built out of an abandoned village or ksour.

Osborne describes Richard and Dally with a local’s eyes:

Les visiteurs, as they were called. Tall, golden men with bright eyes and fussy, incomprehensible tastes. They could have stepped off a ladder dropped from the sky for all the people of Azna knew. The term visitor also implied that at some point in the merciful future they would depart just as suddenly as they had arrived. It was admitted that they were wealthy and that they spent their money in an exceedingly unwise and profligate way, and that this was much to the advantage of the people.

Aside from tourism, the main business of the Moroccans in the book is the sale of fossils they have dug from the desert, which was once, millennia ago, a sea. The locals regard the fossils as the remains of devils. The Europeans view the locals as “repressed and enraged. They treat their women like donkeys.” Transactions are a good enough basis for everyone to get along.

On the long drive south, after a surprisingly bibulous lunch, David and Jo hit and kill Driss, a young Moroccan, who has tried to flag down the car. Not knowing what else to do, Jo and David bring the body to the party with them, but word has got back to Abdellah’s, Driss’ father, in his village, even further south, just at the edge of the desert. Abdellah shows up the next day to collect the body. Hamid, Dally and Richard’s major domo, manages Abdullah’s visit and his demand for some kind of compensation. The upshot is that David must go with Abdellah as he takes the body south for burial. David hesitates, but understands that he must make this compromise with the culture.

As Osborne proceeds through this layered novel, he uncovers much to be forgiven. Jo and David’s marriage is rocky. They have not so much disturbed the party as disrupted the surface compromise that allows the two cultures to profit from each other. But Driss is not entirely the innocent he appears either. As he digs deeper, Osborne exposes the many conflicts underlying the various relationships he describes. Betrayals of religion, culture, family and particularly money – what people with money may do, what other people must do for money – are brought to life with subtlety and savagery.

The heat, the desert landscape, and each side’s complete obliviousness to the other’s point of view make “The Forgiven” a fascinating and thought-provoking novel. Do you agree? Let us know in the comments.

Have a book you want me to know about? Email me at asbowie@gmail.com. I also blog about metrics here.

From the Web

Events, Kids

Transit Museum Reopens November 1, Free Admission for the day

November 1, 2012

Kids still out of school? The NY Transit Museum is open today from 10 AM to 4 PM, and is not charging admission. Remind your kids what a subway car looks like! The NY Transit Museum is located at the corner of Schermerhorn Street and Boerum Place in Brooklyn.

From the Web

Books

Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn

October 26, 2012

Image via amazon.com

On the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy Elliott Dunne disappears from the Missouri home she shares with her husband, Nick Dunne. The living room is in disarray, with furniture that has been knocked over, and eventually blood is found in the Dunnes’ kitchen. Amy is the daughter of a pair of psychologists who have made a fortune from a series of children’s novels based on the character ‘Amazing Amy.’ Nick, a magazine writer who lost his job, and Amy moved to Missouri to help care for Nick’s divorced parents, both of whom are in ill health. Amy, a composer of quizzes and other ephemera for magazines, has been unhappy about the move, and Nick has been ambivalent, though he is very happy that he can now run a bar with his twin sister, Margo. As time passes from the day of Amy’s disappearance and she doesn’t return, the police increasingly fear foul play. And their suspicion centers on Nick.

In preparation for their anniversary, Amy set up a scavenger hunt for Nick, leading him to various places they have been together. But as the book progresses, it becomes evident that each of these clues, if that is what they are, has a double, if not downright sinister, meaning. Nick and Amy tell their story in alternating chapters (while she is missing, Amy’s story comes from her diary entries; they give us her perspective on the history of the relationship). This structure is one of the novel’s great strengths, as it allows Flynn to reveal personalities, clues, and above all reversals slowly, in a compelling way that keeps the reader turning the pages.

The structure also allows Flynn to explore the theme of roles, roles we take on, or roles that our relationships force upon us. In addition to ‘Amazing Amy’ (although her parents insist that the character isn’t real, what child wouldn’t feel she had to live up to the standard set by a fictional avatar?) Amy is also Ozark Amy, Pregnant Amy, and Victim Amy, but she is presenting herself, throughout most of the book, to just a few readers. (The diary is also a clue.) Nick is the Loving Husband, at least until the national media, including several reporters who specialize in outrage over domestic abuse, become interested in the case, when he has the roles of victim and villain thrust upon him.

“Gone Girl” is not the most nuanced book I have ever read, but the structure and story more than compensate. I particularly admired the way Flynn is unafraid to show her characters in all their human complexity and frailty, and found it to be a perfect beach book. “Gone Girl” has been described as one of the “it” books of the summer of 2012. Do you agree? Let us know in the comments.

Have a book you want me to know about? Email me at asbowie@gmail.com. I also blog about metrics at here.

From the Web

Books

Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: Great Writing About Tennis

October 19, 2012

Image via http://www.sportsandfitnessideas.com/

Ask any tennis player to list his or her favorite books about tennis, and almost everyone mentions “Open,” Andre Agassi’s 2009 autobiography. That book is justly celebrated for its honesty about the rigors of professional tennis and its clear voice. Above all, it’s a great story about Agassi’s growth from a punk with attitude and and the appearance of a rebel to one of the game’s great players. He plays well, he plays badly. He learns that his career is at risk because he has failed a drug test. Then, helping a friend’s child through a difficult hospitalization, he writes:

Her suffering, her resilient smile in the face of that suffering, my part in easing her suffering–this, this, is the reason for everything. . . This is why we’re here. To fight through the pain and, when possible, to relieve the pain of others. So simple. So hard to see.

Agassi writes a letter asking for leniency with the drug violation, and vows never to lie, or take drugs, again. He commits to a new diet, a new training regimen, and to practice. He plays challenger events. And, well, you know the rest: winning the French and US Opens in 1999. Marriage to Steffi Graf. Children. The Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy. The book is a pleasure to read. You can’t beat it as a story of redemption through tennis.

Another of my favorite tennis books is “The Tennis Partner,” by Abraham Verghese. Written in between Verghese’s better known books (“My Own Country,” a memoir, and the recent novel “Cutting for Stone”), in “The Tennis Partner” Verghese tells of his family’s move to El Paso, Texas. His marriage is falling apart, and he has a new job at a teaching hospital. He and an intern, called David Smith, forge a strong friendship on the tennis court. David, a former college tennis player, is also a recovering addict.

David and Verghese play often and, pushing each other, get to know each other’s characters. Verghese paves the way for David to enter his specialty, internal medicine, but David’s recovery has ups and downs. David’s life is mirrored in the regular tennis matches they continue to play, vibrant or mechanical, real or lifeless. Eventually, the disease gets the better of him. Tennis, of course, is a metaphor for life, and Verghese ends the book on his usual graceful note:

[N]othing was as important as the two of us keeping that ball in play. The universe and our very lives depended on this one thing: Get the ball back over the net just one more time.

A local tennis pro told me about “Glory’s Net” by William T. Tilden. “Glory’s Net” tells the story of David Cooper, a talented player who comes from the middle of nowhere (well, Hobansville, Illinois) to win the US Tennis Championship. Cooper plans to return home, open a gas station, and marry his sweetheart, Mary. After he wins he meets Mr. Randolph Harker, a pooh-bah of the US Lawn Tennis Association, who attends the championships with his beautiful daughter, Arline. Harker is shocked, shocked at Cooper’s plans to commercialize his championship (he wants to name the gas station the Champion Inn). Harker and Arline persuade Cooper to become a bond trader at Harker’s firm. David and Mary marry and move to New York. The plan is to allow David the time to practice so as to put further glittering prizes, including the Wimbledon and French titles, within his, and the Harkers’, reach. Arline and David play mixed doubles, and Arline shows David a rather different sort of life off the court.

Tilden was a writer as well as a tennis star, and he brings the European and American circuits of the 1920s to life. The tennis descriptions are clear and exciting. There are appearances by French and American tennis stars at various locations (even the Heights Casino gets a cameo). Tilden also illustrates the hypocrisy of tennis life in the “amateur” period, anticipating the advent of open tennis by nearly 40 years. (You can read Sports Illustrated’s 1968 coverage of the first US Open, which allowed professionals to compete for the US title, here.) The book provides a nice window into 1920s behavior and language. All is nicely resolved, and David and Arline learn that tennis glory can be a trap as well as a prize.

What are your favorite books about tennis? Let us know in the comments.

Have a book you want me to know about? Email me at asbowie@gmail.com. I also blog about metrics here.

From the Web

Events

Sam Schwartz speaks at Transit Museum Wednesday, October 17

October 15, 2012

The NY Transit Museum’s Problem Solvers Discussion Series continues on Wednesday, October 17 when Ben Kabak will speak with Sam Schwartz. They will discuss New York City Transit’s most pressing problems in an open-ended discussion.

Sam Schwartz, also known as “Gridlock Sam,” was New York City’s Traffic Commissioner from 1982-1986, and later worked as Chief Engineer for the New York City Department of Transportation. Ben Kabak writes the Second Avenue Sagas.

The event will be held at the Actor’s Fund Art Center, 160 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn. Admission is free but reservations are recommended.

Date: October 17, 2012

Time: 6:30pm

Place: 160 Schermerhorn St, Brooklyn

Reservations here.

From the Web

Books

Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “Derby Day” by D.J. Taylor

October 12, 2012

Image via fineartprintsondemand.com

“Derby Day,” the latest offering by the British novelist D.J. Taylor, follows the owner, would-be owner, and bettors on a horse in a several months-long run-up to the annual running of the Epsom Derby. The would-be owner is Mr. Happerton, a man of no particular means though a great deal of interest in racing; he is out to make his fortune by running a horse in the Derby. He has set his sights on a horse named Tiberius, and uses three methods, all unscrupulous at best, in order to acquire it. First, he sets out to buy the paper memorializing the debts and security of the present owner, Mr. Davenant. Second, he courts and marries Rebecca Gresham, the disaffected daughter of a successful attorney, and his wife becomes a conduit for her father’s money. Third, using intermediaries, he sets in motion a daring robbery of a jeweler’s shop.

These three threads contribute to a rich and layered portrait of Derby Day. The Derby, held in mid-June, has been run since 1780, and is still run today. The year of the events in the novel is not specified, but it must be sometime in the late 1860s or early 1870s. In the novel as now the race is surrounded by a fair. It’s a national event, and, in the novel, interest in the outcome is widely shared, with bets placed by everyone from the lowliest housemaid up through the social strata to various aristocrats.

And virtually every character in this sprawling novel is interested in the race as well. Mr. Happerton forces Mr. Davenant, a widower with a developmentally delayed daughter, Evie, to sell the horse. Mr. Davenant has a loyal friend and neighbor, Mr. Glenister, who follows the course of his friend’s misfortunes, and wants to see what happens with the horse. Mr. Glenister also finds Evie’s young governess, Miss Ellington, an attractive conversational partner. Various other characters, including the police officer Captain McTurk, who is trying to recover the stolen jewelry and find the mastermind, and the jewel thief Mr. Pardew also wind up at the race. In case you think it’s not complicated enough already, there is great uncertainty about the outcome, some of it centered on whether Mr. Happerton, is betting for or against his horse. Mrs. Happerton has her own betting strategy, different from her husband’s. It’s all resolved at the Epsom Derby itself.

Written in a 21st century version of 19th century style, “Derby Day” is great fun. Mr. Taylor does a very good job of keeping tabs on his many characters, and maintaining suspense up until the very end of the race. Many of the villains are satisfyingly punished. If I have one complaint, it’s that Mr. Taylor requires a great many pages to tie up all the subplots. I’m also not certain Mrs. Rebecca Happerton was suitably treated. What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Have a book you want me to know about? Email me at asbowie@gmail.com. I also blog about metrics here.

From the Web

Books

Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “Culinary Intelligence” by Peter Kaminsky

October 5, 2012

Image via Amazon.com

“Culinary Intelligence: The Art of Eating Healthy (and Really Well),” by the food writer Peter Kaminsky, provides a lively and light hearted tour through a serious subject. We live in a society of plenty, where processed foods filled with fat, sugar, and salt are readily available. But they make us fat. According to the New York Times, two-thirds of American adults, and one-third of American children are overweight or obese. In his late 50s, Kaminsky came to a medical crossroads: his weight was high enough to put him at risk of diabetes. As he puts it: “How does a guy who loves food and wine–in fact, makes his living writing about them–gain control of what he puts in his body?”

In this book, Kaminsky provides the answer, along with recipes, and a memoir of some good meals. The key is what he calls Culinary Intelligence, or CI. The principle is simple: “Buy the best ingredients you can afford. Cook them well.” How do you do this? Kaminsky devotes the rest of the book to recommendations for ways to keep eating pleasurable, joyful, and healthy.

The first corollary is something Kaminsky calls Flavor per Calorie. Taste is extremely important to the enjoyment of food, of course, not to mention safety – bad taste can be a warning that a food is spoiled or dangerous. Kaminsky reports that taste does not end in the mouth. Recent research has shown that we also have taste receptors in our stomachs. And if those taste receptors are satisfied, because what you have eaten tastes good, then you will quickly feel full. Or, as Kaminsky puts it:

It stand to reason, then, that if you get more taste bang for the bite, then you won’t need so many bites. If your food is indifferently prepared from ingredients that lack flavor, the only alternative is to pile on the high-calorie combo of sugar, salt, and fat.

Corollary two: Avoid processed food. Think about what is in the food you’re buying. Check out the labels, and avoid anything with too many multi-syllabic ingredients. Corollary three: Buy local if possible, because food that has traveled may have been grown to withstand the rigors of travel, rather than for taste (think of the supermarket strawberries you get in March, for example). And, corollary four: Cook your food in a way that adds flavor – there’s a small section on spices, and a much longer one on caramelization.

There’s not too much science in this book. (If you want to know the difference between caramel and caramelization you’ll have to go elsewhere.) Kaminsky refers, several times, to Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” which everyone interested in food and food production should read. Brownstone Brooklyn readers will enjoy Kaminsky’s mentions of local shops. Because Kaminsky also focuses on what to do day to day, when to bend the general rules, and how to cope with restaurants, this spritely book outlines a philosophy that anyone can follow. Do you agree? Let us know in the comments.

I also blog about metrics here. Have a book you want me to know about? Email me at asbowie@gmail.com

From the Web

Downtown Brooklyn, Events, Features, News

NY Transit Museum Sponsors Exhibit Celebrating Miss Subways

October 1, 2012

For over thirty years, photos and biographies of New York women were displayed in subway cars as part of the “Meet Miss Subways” advertising campaign and beauty pageant. Young women of mostly middle and working class backgrounds were selected, not just for their looks, but for their hopes and aspirations. Meet Miss Subways: New York’s Beauty Queens 1941-76, opening on October 23rd at the New York Transit Museum, will look beyond the pretty faces and pageant sashes to expose a fascinating and invaluable record of the changes and challenges which have shaped New York women.

Photographer Fiona Gardner and journalist Amy Zimmer tracked down former contestants, taking portraits in their new surroundings and recording their stories. Gardner first became interested in the campaign after seeing the many pageant advertising cards displayed on the walls of Ellen’s Stardust Diner, owned by Ellen Hart, a former winner herself. Ms. Gardner began a long-term project to create new portraits of the contest winners, reflecting the reality of their lives some thirty years later. Gardner and Zimmer are working on a book to be released this winter . The project is sponsored by Artspire, a program of the New York Foundation for the Arts. Generous support was provided by Foto Care.

Originally conceived as a way to draw attention to nearby ads, Winners’ photos and biographies were displayed in trains throughout the city. The publicity often led to work in radio and television, and the contest became a compelling platform for civil rights debates in the city. In the 1940s, African-American advocacy groups pressured John Robert Powers, the modeling agent in charge of selecting winners, to integrate the contest, finally succeeding near the end of the decade. Thelma Porter, the first black Miss Subways,  was celebrated on the cover of Crisis Magazine.  In 1949, Helen Lee became the first Asian-American winner.

In 1963, contest selection opened up and the public voted for their favorite candidates via postcard. With this change, prospective Miss Subways aggressively marketed themselves to their communities and beyond. In the 1970s, the growing feminist movement and New York’s broadening fiscal crisis led to a decline in interest in the contest, which ended in 1976. In 2004, the MTA briefly revived a “Ms. Subways” contest in honor of the 100th anniversary of the subways.

At the Transit Museum exhibit, original pageant cards will wrap around the room at ceiling level, as they would have been seen by straphangers years ago. Modern portraits by Fiona Gardner will hang below. The Rush Arts Gallery describes her prints in this way: “Her photographs’ dramatic lighting references the glamour of pageantry, while the settings—homes and places of work—are the everyday spaces of the women’s lives.” In addition to the vivid portraits, visitors will be able to hear audio clips of interviews with ten women on antique phones placed around the room. The exhibition text, culled from countless interviews with Miss Subways winners and written by Amy Zimmer, touches on both personal revelations as well as larger social changes which impacted the lives of women everywhere.

On Thursday, November 29th, City Lore’s Steve Zeitlin will speak with Fiona Gardner and a former contestant about the significance of the Miss Subways pageant as a form of urban folklore. The event is free and will take place at 6 pm inside the Transit Museum. City Lore documents, presents, and advocates for grassroots cultures to ensure their living legacy in stories, histories, places, and traditions.

On November 11th and December 9th at 3pm, the Museum will host free events investigating the history of subway advertising as displayed in the Museum’s car collection and Meet Miss Subways exhibition.

From the Web