Wild Fermentation

Granted it doesn't take much these days, but this is the most exciting news I've had for awhile. The bible of lovely fermented foods (pickles, kimchi, yogurt, kefir and more) has been revised and available for sale in mid-August.

I knew there was a reason I've resisted paying $25 for the original edition in local stores. And never say that my Twitter addiction doesn't pay off. The author is someone I follow, and he sent this around an hour ago from his publisher. Complete with a $10 discount for pre-order. Didn't take me long to place that order. Skid marks on the credit card.

Other than that -- a damned dull few days.  I haven't had much energy, or enough sleep. Whine. That doesn't lead to long bike rides. Perfect weather today -- door open all day, lots of breezes, not too hot. Would have been a great day for cycling, BUT we have plenty of those days ahead so not to worry. I'll be back out there when my body is ready. Whenever that is. Really need to find something to do with all the hours I'm not on the bike. Boredom leads to eating, and that leads to fat. Not good! My roommate encourages me to do my fermentation stuff or whatever I want in the kitchen, make myself at home, but so far, I'm not into it. Also waiting for some pickling cukes to hit the local farmer's market.

What else? Need to find something or it's going to be another long few months. Don't get me wrong, this is a lovely place to live. There's just not much to do here other than what TV I can get with an antenna. Is it any wonder I cling to Twitter for fun?

The Oregon Trail

This is the most extraordinary book! I grabbed it randomly off a library shelf because I'm always interested in history of places I live or have connections to.

Little did I realize that this is not a history book, per se. There's lots of detailed history of the trail woven through it, but basically it's an account of a trip two brothers took over the trail, from St. Josephs MO to Oregon, in 2011 in the very wagon shown on the cover!

The brother who wrote the book is a lifelong journalist and the book is very well written. He weaves the 2011 trip, detailed history of the pioneer travel (lots of research and actual journal entries of actual people who did it), as well as a trip he went on with his father and some siblings back in 1958, on the east coast. The brothers are opposite in personality and play off one another throughout the book. Rinker, the journalist, is quieter, a bit uptight and cautious, while his brother Nick is boisterous and fearless and charges into the most harrowing circumstances with glee and abandon.

I never knew mules could be so interesting! He gives a good background on their use and development, the different crosses and types that exist, what type works best for what use, and basically more than I ever thought I wanted to know about mules. But, it was interesting and the three that towed their wagon had very distinct personalities.

It's an astonishing story of perseverance over things going wrong and unimagined difficulties across almost 2000 miles of trail. All along the way people helped them, welcomed them, got them out of difficult situations. In long-distance hiking these kinds of people are called trail magic. He calls it trail angels.

Great book. Highly recommended, although it certainly did spur my need for an adventure of my own!

Get a life!

What are the odds, do you think, that three books that came into my hands quite randomly at the same time would feature a main character named Rachel? They came my way simply by having my name hit the #1 spot on the library waiting lists for each. The odds are slightly better that each would be spectacular, because they were chosen directly from the NYT bestseller lists on various Sundays. Each is markedly different, in setting and story line, but each is masterfully crafted, beautifully written, full of content. The Girl on the Train is filled with suspense, from beginning to end, hard to put down.

The Marriage of Opposites is the story of the famous French painter Camille Pissaro. More accurately, the story primarily of his mother, who was born on St. Thomas, which was then a Danish territory, although her heritage was French and Jewish. His father came from France, although of Spanish heritage.

The author is deeply talented, tailoring her prose to whichever character has the point of view, including that of the young Pissaro, who sees a world of color and light and shape and form in language that is fascinating.

 Unlike the others, who do you love is by an author whose work I know well. It's a love story, of course, but far from what might be called a 'romance book'. She's way too talented for the trite, trivial and predictable. It covers many years, some of which are actually set here in Eugene at the UO. Gotta love that!

One more book that came with the bunch awaits, and I suspect it's equally as wonderful as these three have been. It's the latest, and probably last, book by Ivan Doig, who passed away recently.


So beyond all that, I'm walking around groggy and bleary-eyed because of a late football game that I couldn't turn off. More action in the last 20 mins (including triple overtime) than the whole rest of the game put together. Awesome. Worth being groggy and bleary-eyed. What else do I have to do, after all?

I did make it to the gym this morning for my 45 minutes on the treadmill. I missed Wednesday because I awoke with an oddly pulled back muscle, and also hadn't slept well. Not likely to do much this weekend, as usual. I really do need to get a life!

But, at least I have good books to read.

Go Set A Watchman

I've been on the waiting list at our library for some time for this book, mostly out of curiosity. My number finally came up (or, the library finally got enough copies to meet the demand).

Maybe it's because the book is set in a time and place I know so well -- where I grew up, in effect -- but I was almost instantly transported into the book and story, far from the initial curiosity that led me to read it. I could so easily identify with the colloquialisms and descriptions of things that indeed existed at that time, were very true to the time and place. We weren't separated by all that many miles: the story is set in a small town in south Alabama and my own small town is in north Georgia. I had an aunt and uncle who lived not all that far from where Harper Lee lived in her small Alabama town. We're practically kissin' cousins.

So, I was wrapped up in the story and the people from the first page. I loved the references to earlier days in Scout's life (the times and people of To Kill A Mockingbird), and I loved seeing Scout's story fleshed out with more details, plus the added connections of so many of the same people being in both books. Beautifully written, as would be expected. Plenty of depth in characters and story, also to be expected. A book to be savored and contemplated, rich in language, writing skill and characters.

Granted, the story is not a pretty one, but it is a real and authentic one. I was there, so I can see the authenticity, even though Scout was maybe 12-13 years older than I would have been at the time. The book was written in and about the mid-fifties, which gives it a solid grounding in the realities of the time as only a writer who experienced it could do. Many people write about this era after-the-fact, but their words and opinions are based on history, rather than experience. Not that experience makes it any prettier, but it does make it authentic.

I had an experience similar to Scout's a few years back when I learned that my beloved grandfather, a man I knew to be as kind and gentle and good as a person could be, a man I idolized and loved above all others throughout my life, once marched with the Klan. I learned this from a cousin whose mother, my father's older sister, recognized her father's shoes underneath his white sheet as he marched through town with a large group. I guess the shoes were pretty distinctive, but she wasn't in any doubt who it was. So I can understand Scout's sense of loss at learning her own, idolized, father's views on the subject. Fortunately, by the time I learned it I was an old woman and my grandfather long dead. Scout was young, her father very much alive. I wasn't devastated as she was, merely surprised. People are human, even our idols, and don't always live up to our lofty expectations and sensibilities.

There's plenty of deep insight and philosophy scattered throughout the book; things that will (or should) make you think. They certainly made me think. That's particularly true towards the end, when the story reaches its turning point. Reading much of this enraged me once again, as the southern attitude towards black people has enraged me throughout my life. I had the good fortune to be born as color blind as Scout, and words such as backward infuriate me when used in this context. I would substitute other words, such as uneducated, for starters. Yet, pretty or not, it's true to the time and place. And no, I'm not going to get started on my own soapbox. Scout said it all for me.

A couple of quotes from the last few pages really caught my attention and made me think. One was ...it's always easy to look back and see what we were,  yesterday, ten years ago. It is hard to see what we are. Another, Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.

Lifelong Passions

It was a quiet weekend and I didn't feel particularly good or energetic for any of it, but it was jam-packed with high moments and near life-long and old-time joys and interests and passions being sated, and that alone made it super.

First -- a quick trip to the library Saturday morning scored the latest book by my writing idol, Anne Rivers Siddons, The Girls of August. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I didn't even know this book existed, because I try to keep track of her new books. It came out last July, when I was immersed in monastic life in California and after some hectic months of planning, and then moving back to the west coast. So maybe I can be forgiven, but really -- I've checked websites of other writers I like since then, and I have no idea why I didn't check hers. I've read every book she's ever written. But -- it made for a nice surprise when I saw it on a shelf and grabbed it almost rudely. And unlike her last book, Burnt Mountain, which was seriously weird, this one returned to her 'roots' of writing about people and wonderful old houses, all set in the south. Her earlier books were mostly set in Atlanta (she was an early writer for Atlanta magazine), but then she moved on to the wonderful Carolina low country that is still a magnet for me, if I only had the money. From Charleston and its islands, on down to Beaufort and its islands and beaches, she has done more than any other writer to draw such beautiful word-pictures of that area and make me long to see it. Pat Conroy has done his share, too, of course -- but Ms. Siddons is still my favorite. It was a short book that was easily finished, and as usual I felt bereft once it was over. Beautiful!

Then -- probably a little-known fact here is my passion for horse racing. I'm not sure when that started, exactly, but I'll guess it was around 13 or 14. I inhaled racing statistics, bloodlines, who won what where, and my first racing 'idol' was Bold Ruler, in 1957. I picked him early on in the season, watching one of the early races on TV (maybe the Flamingo Stakes, not sure). When he lost the Derby I was shocked -- was so sure he would do it. More of a sprinter, unfortunately, but he showed them all after he became one of the best sires ever in the breed. One son was Secretariat, grandsons such as Spectacular Bid and Seattle Slew also come to mind. So in the end, he did OK. As a star-struck teenager, I wrote to his trainer Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons and asked for a photo -- which I got! It was in the winner's circle at the Flamingo, and it was signed 'To Kitty, from Bold Ruler and Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons'. I treasured that for years, then accidentally tossed it when I was purging for a move from Newport Beach back in the mid-70s. Would love to still have it today. That's the downside of moving, and purging, so often. Sometimes, things get lost in the shuffle.

Then, in 1958 I picked a lovely horse named Tim Tam, again early in the season. This one won both the Derby and Preakness and was well on his way to winning the Belmont when in the stretch run an Irish horse named Cavan passed him and won by many lengths. My first heartbreak! It didn't take long for the announcement to be made that he'd broken a sesamoid bone in a front ankle as he entered the stretch, but kept running. His jockey said later that while he knew something was wrong, the horse refused to pull up and he stopped urging him to run. He would have won! I'll never stop believing that, and every year in June when I watch the Belmont, the memories return. Fortunately, with some surgery he survived and lived into the 80s as a stud with some success.

So -- yes, I've watched all the races this year and yes I watched American Pharoah win the coveted triple crown on Saturday. And yes, I was filled with emotion.

So then -- I can't believe there's more -- came Sunday night and my other lifelong (or close) passion, Broadway musicals came my way via the Tony Awards with all the live performances from various shows. I loved every minute of it! And this is about as close as I'll ever get again to Broadway in this lifetime, I suspect. It fills the empty hole a little. As I watched, I was trying to remember which shows I've actually seen in New York. My first Broadway show was actually a drama, Dracula with  Frank Langello way back in the late 70s, courtesy of Wells, Rich, Greene advertising (or, probably, the client) after I'd flown on the red-eye from Los Angeles to deliver some artwork for an early morning board of directors meeting of Columbia Pictures, one of our clients. This was way before the digital age, of course. Big flat carrying case of original storyboards that I guarded carefully. Afterwards, I was treated to some tours of the fabled New York office and a few days in the city on the client. Fun!

But I digress. Another visit to NYC a few years later, this time courtesy of my employer, Beringer Vineyards, on a tour of the eastern market (NYC, DC and Boston). This time, I saw Evita and 42nd Street, and maybe that was the trip where I saw a show with the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. Or maybe that was the next trip, I'm really not sure. It was all a long time ago. The next trip, which was a year or two later, I went to the national POPAI award show where I had two displays entered (one blue ribbon, one red). This time I wasn't alone -- one of our suppliers who had printed one of the displays went, too, so my time wasn't totally my own. He and I went to see Evita again (first time for him) and had some good food. I've seen countless musicals in various places where I've lived, but these were Broadway, and that brought a whole new dimension to the subject.

So yeah, a good weekend! The weather's been great. My lungs are, hopefully, getting better, although walking up the hill from the bus stop on Saturday was tougher than I expected -- audible wheezing, most uncomfortable. But -- these things will pass. Today I expect to return to my gym schedule, although I'm under no illusions that I'll return to my full workout just yet. One step at a time, and it was still a helluva weekend!

Obsession

Bhavana in winter.

Golly gee, what a restless day! I think 'travel fever' has taken hold, even though I don't leave until a week from today. My mind tends to transition itself on its own time schedule, and right now it's transitioning or transitioned to Bhavana.  I'm physically here, but the mind is doing its own thing. :)

So I'm restless. Meditation would be a good antidote for that, but I'm out of the habit and it's hard to restart without a push of some kind (I think two weeks of nothing else to do will take care of that!). Now, I guess I need to put the physical wheels in motion, although most of those are already handled in my mind too, and there's no point in actually packing bags this early. I wouldn't have any clothes left to wear around here!

I'm hoping the weather allows me to get there. Snow and ice there for the next few days, but it should disappear before next Sunday and right now there's no more forecast for that weekend. That forecast changes several times every day, however, so I'll continue to keep my eye on it.

I'm so looking forward to being at this wonderful place and seeing the smiling, familiar faces of the monks and staff once again. But, in the meantime I have things to gather and pack, a dermatologist appointment, a haircut (maybe) and a recycling run (all on one trip to Rome).

I think I need to find something active and useful to do today, since it's only 9am and there's a lot of daylight between now and bedtime!  Hard to gather much interest on a cold, wet and gray day.

I've been reading Pat Conroy's cookbook (the essay portions) this morning, but it's short and won't take long to finish. Yesterday, I finished his latest book, The Death of Santini, and was left wanting more, plus I wanted to revisit the recipes and see if there was anything in there I might try. Most are too complicated and/or too expensive for me to do. Primarily more expensive!

I admit that I'm somewhat obsessed with this man, and I don't even care. He's an incredible writer and I was hooked back around 1986-87 when I read The Prince of Tides -- first time I'd ever heard of him, I believe.  I thought I'd died and gone to writer's heaven, and nothing I've read of his since has disabused me of that feeling.

There's also some weird sense of connection to him that has no basis in reality -- although I've often thought that perhaps it's the shared 'military brat' background and the fact that we both hated our fathers from early childhood. Not to mention that we are both children of the South and have both suffered a lifetime of depression. In fact, I discovered in the new book that his mother was born and raised dirt poor in Rome  -- 20 miles north of here. Her parents were from Piedmont, AL, 25 miles west of here where some of my own mother's family settled a couple of hundred years ago. Unfortunately, I can't find any of his family names in my own genealogy database -- it would be cool to be a distant cousin. He's a couple of years younger than I, his parents/grandparents and mine lived parallel lives during the same time periods and may have even crossed paths -- his grandfather owned a barbershop in Rome at the same time my grandfather owned a barbershop in Cedartown, and my grandfather's brother owned a barbershop in Rome. These were small towns back then, so it's not out of the question that my great uncle would have known Pat's grandfather, since they were in the same trade. Possibly my grandfather as well, since he was from Rome. On the other hand, Pat's grandfather took his fundamentalist background a bit far, abandoning both his business and family to go out on the streets evangelizing, so the parallels end at that point.

Something else I find fascinating is that one of my other favorite writers, Rick Bragg, is also from the Piedmont, AL area, from another dirt poor family that moved in that same time period and that same arc from the Piedmont area to Rome and back, following ways and places to earn a living. Two great writers spawned from the hardscrabble life of Piedmont, AL. Who'd have thunk it?

King's Mountain

Pardon the lousy graphic -- image ripped from Amazon and it's none too good.

But -- the book itself is wonderful! This is my second 'ballad' novel by Sharyn McCrumb, and while it wasn't quite as entertaining as The Ballad of Tom Dooley, which I read a year or two ago, it's a good story.

The author specializes in well-researched historical novels set in North Carolina and Tennessee. She uses facts -- real people and documented events -- and builds good reads around them. Tom Dooley was a real person -- real name, Thomas Dula, and his story was true.

This book chronicles a two-week interval in 1780 where a bunch of mountain men banded together, militias from various states (Virginia, North and South Carolina, North Georgia) with one common goal: to find and battle the British Army Major Patrick Ferguson who was roaming the mountains. The main players in the story are real people -- from historical records, genealogical records and such. The victory at King's Mountain was considered by Thomas Jefferson and others as the turning point in the American Revolution. I'm afraid I kept my eyes on Google maps to follow their path from "overmountain" on the northwest side of Roan Mountain in what is now Tennessee, right on the border of North Carolina, to the battlefield.

As the author states, King's Mountain was a veritable "Who's Who" of the frontier south. Although not all mentioned in the book, the roster of men  included the first governor of Tennessee, the first governor of Kentucky, the brother-in-law of Virginia governor Patrick Henry, Davy Crockett's father, Robert E. Lee's father, and the grandfather of North Carolina's Civil War governor, Zebulon Vance.

It also included a much-less-exalted ancestor of mine: Pendleton Isbell, who served with Benjamin Cleveland from Wilkes County, NC. This wasn't Pendleton's first Revolutionary War battle, either. He also served with George Washington at Valley Forge and Brandywine, but this time he was defending his home territory. McCrumb mentions some Isbell's in The Ballad of Tom Dooley, but not Pendleton. That story takes place in and around Wilkes County, so her Isbells are also bound to be relatives of mine, one way or another.

I'm definitely planning to read more of her work. If you like history or just good fiction, maybe you should give her a try.

Preserve Your Brain

A friend of mine has written a fine book that we can all use. Especially those of us on the high side of 50 and counting. Entitled "Preserve Your Brain", the book contains exercises we can do to keep our brain alert and active, probably even encourage the growth of new brain cells (which again, we can all use).

Ann has long been a teacher of yoga and tai chi, specializing in seniors, and has published many articles on the subject of health and mental well-being. She knows her stuff. The book encompasses simple exercises that anyone can do, some yoga, some stretches, the importance of smiling, mindful meditation, brain nutrition, and much more. I haven't fully read my copy yet but I have looked through it, tried a few suggestions, and look forward to sitting down for a good read in the near future.

The book is available on Amazon for a modest price, and I'd recommend it to all of you.

A tear-jerker from John Grisham

I haven't read a John Grisham book for many years, way back when he first started writing. Not sure why I haven't read more, but there you have it.  I saw this one at the library yesterday and (in a small library with a dearth of new books) decided to read it.

It's the story of two fictional baseball players in 1973, one playing for the Cubs, the other for the Mets. As you would expect from Grisham, the story is well-written and moves quickly. What I wouldn't expect from him is a story that touched me so much. Toward the end, tears threatened more than once. And that's unusual for me.  It's a serious study of baseball, with lots of baseball stats and game talk and such, and if this kind of thing bugs you, read it anyway. I don't think you'll be sorry.

I sure wasn't!

The Shoemaker's Wife

This has to be about the best book I've read in a really, really long time. And I mean, the best in every way. Story, characters, structure and  the writing style of a master.

As the quote on the cover says, 'utterly splendid'. Not a sour note anywhere. And, can you believe the cover photo is from Harper's Bazaar, 1949? It is timeless.

Interestingly enough, the story has a basis in reality (don't they all?). The author's grandparents were born in the Alps of Northern Italy, as the main characters in this book are, and it's clearly written with intimate knowledge of the towns and topography of that area. Not to mention a more than passing knowledge of Italian food! Everything rings true -- well, aside from some convenient meetings between the two characters in New York City. But that's not enough to spoil it in any way.

So read it -- you'll love it.

Velva Jean Learns to Fly

I've decided that I'm going to do more book reviews in this blog. I've done a few in the past, but sometimes I find a really good writer that I've never heard of, and without DSL in the house I expect I'll be doing a lot more reading.

I brought this book home almost out of desperation -- because there wasn't much of anything else on the 'new books' rack at the library.  It's a continuation of an earlier book called 'Velva Jean Learns to Drive', but one doesn't get the sense that you needed to read the first book before reading this one. I think I'll read the first one, now, because this woman can write.

Velva Jean escapes from the mountains of North Carolina in the early 1940s, driving herself to Nashville to become a singer on the Grand Ole Opry.  The war comes along, she learns to fly, then is accepted into the WASP program which trained women pilots.  Much adventure ensues from her years in this program.

Jennifer Niven is a wonderful writer, in my opinion. Her words are true to the character and clear as a bell. You almost feel that you are Velva Jean. There's a lot of country wisdom on almost every page.  I found it engrossing.  I'll be reading more of her work.

Good or bad? Not quite sure

I'm a little stunned right now, having just finished the latest book by my favorite author, Anne Rivers Siddons. On one hand, I'm thoroughly disappointed, and on the other hand feel that she's finally graduated into the ranks of other slightly crazed but brilliant southern writers. I don't know which is worse. Or better.

On the good side, she's come home again to Atlanta for this book, and she wraps the city and the southern culture around the reader in a way that rings totally true for what I'd call 'true Georgians', those who are natives and who know old Georgia/Atlanta as well as new Georgia/Atlanta. There's a familiarity that soothes. She nails the syrupy persona of a certain kind of southern woman, and the pretensions that were and still are rampant, particularly in and around Atlanta. She mocks both with a edge that I found most satisfying and familiar.

Siddons has always been a magical writer, to me. Her prose is lyrical, her characters and stories deep and lush and satisfying.  I savored every book simply for the beauty of the words strung together one after another, page after page.

From the get-go, this book was different. That lyrical beauty was mostly missing from the prose. Often there were sentences that I had trouble understanding (I thought I was perhaps becoming more senile than I realized, at first). I found it a bit hard to follow at times as later incidents and characters seemed disconnected with earlier parts of the story, and the timelines seemed off, from time to time. I think if you didn't know Atlanta and the south, and if  you weren't familiar with her other books, these might not have been so noticeable. But I'm not sure about that.

Because it was Anne Rivers Siddons, I kept reading and found myself drawn into the story, inexorably grabbed by what is, for her, a very strange storyline, impelled forward to the end.  Although I noticed discrepancies, I couldn't help but read on.  The ending is bizarre (although from the first pages bizarreness is hinted at, so the fact that it would be somehow bizarre should come as no surprise). This is where I think she blends into those other crazed southern writers and I still don't know if that's good or bad. Unlike some other reviews I read on Amazon when I went in to steal the image shown here, I'd say hell yes, read this book! Just don't expect it to be like any other book this woman has ever written.

Fingerprints

My very talented sailing friend Lew Decker has written a wonderful book by the name of Fingerprints that is essentially a memoir, and Lew's life has been interesting.  I first read the manuscript several years ago, and just now finished reading the final product, which is available on Amazon.  While much of the early part revolves around his childhood in Myrtle Beach, SC, a large portion follows his life as a cruising sailor in the Caribbean, in and around Key West. Throughout, he battles his relationship with his father, mourns his broken marriage, and follows a sailing life that I longed for in my youth.  There's nothing like the freedom of the wind on open seas.

Lew manages to weave insight, wisdom and meaning into every chapter, beyond merely reciting what happened.  The book is poignant, deeply honest, and his use of language is lyrical and beautiful.

The manuscript and the finished product.

Lew's a good guy.  The forty foot trimaran on the cover is Sun Flower (two words), which he built by hand in his backyard in San Diego, then sailed through Panama and into the Caribbean.   His adventures were many and interesting. Each story will leave you with something to think about.

Buy it!