Category Archives: The Morgue

Books on Exuberant Display

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It takes more than a some Ikea bookshelves to make a memorable display. A beautiful, thoughtfully designed library or bookstore incites the imagination. People who love to read are certain a beautiful display of books–whether bookstore or library–holds unknown, but discoverable treasures of knowledge and imagination.

We recently visited Manhattan’s beautiful Morgan Library to see the Hans Holbein the Younger exhibit and were equally intrigued by the exhibit on Woody Guthrie. Two more different experiences are hard to imagine, except with the common thread of explaining and reflecting their times, separated by five centuries. The accompanying photo shows the library behind an open copy of the Gutenberg Bible.

One library that turns up on every list of “world’s most beautiful” is the Admont Abbey Library, (above), part of a Benedictine monastery in Admont, Austria. The gold-and-white library is a confection of baroque excess. Not only is it the world’s largest library in a monastery (about 70,000 volumes), it looks like it belongs on a dessert plate.

We’re visiting Portugal later this year, and the bookstore, Livraria Lello, in the city of Porto is something I hope to see. Porto is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the bookstore is more than 115 years old.

This neo-Gothic structure, with its pinnacled grey exterior, is one of the oldest bookstores in the country. Not only does it contain a wealth of history, but keeps one foot firmly in the modern era.

JK Rowling once lived in Porto and reputedly frequented the store while she was working on the Harry Potter series. You now need a paid voucher system to enjoy this exuberant architecture.

One of my favorite bookstores is the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, Arizona. As its name suggests, it mainly features the crime, mystery, and thriller novels I enjoy. Plus it offers an ambitious program of conversations with noted authors. A Rogues’ Gallery of past presenters is tacked to the ceiling beams, and, if you like this genre, you’ll find many favorite authors pictured, some from their early writing days. We heard Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child talk about their most recent work there. Someone in the audience asked Preston, whose background is in science, about his predictions about the likelihood—even the inevitability of—a major pandemic. Barely a month later, we were in lockdown.

The Chinese Lady

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The Chinese Lady, by Lloyd Suh, is on stage through April 10 at The Public Theater in Manhattan, directed by Ma-Yi Theater Company artistic director Ralph B. Peña. The play premiered in July 2018, but disturbing events over the past year have made it poignantly timely.

Based on real-life events, the story centers on Julia Foochee Ching-Chang King, called Afong Moy (played by Shannon Tyo). In 1834, Moy was brought to New York by a shipping magnate named Carnes who bought her from her parents. She was 14 (or so) and arrived at a time when few Chinese men and no (known) Chinese women had been seen in this country. Carnes put her on display, in order to promote the exotic trade goods he imported from the Orient. The exhibit was popular, and Moy was the first Chinese person to receive wide public acclaim and recognition in this country.

The room where Moy gives her performances is outfitted in “Chinese style,” and she describes her life there and her reaction to the New World. She demonstrates eating with chopsticks and the tea ceremony, and part of her act is to walk around the little room to show her audience how the practice of foot-binding inhibits her ability to walk. (The real-life Afong Moy toured America as a “living exhibit” for decades.)

Of course, in the beginning, Afong Moy cannot speak English, so she has a translator named Atung (Daniel K. Isaac), who is her servant and, as she says, “irrelevant.” He brings the food for the chopsticks demonstration and takes it away, he brings the tea service, and he shows audience members various artifacts that Carnes hopes they will buy. She is charming and funny.

Because the two of them talk naturally to each other, you don’t have a sense of how limited Atung’s English is until they meet President Andrew Jackson. You hear Afong Moy’s heartfelt sentiments about crosscultural communication and understanding and Atung’s translation (this is not word-correct, but you’ll get the idea), “She like it here.”

Afong Moy grows up before your eyes, evolving from a lively, optimistic teenager into a world-weary mature woman, now performing in P.T. Barnum’s American Museum. As time passes, the play references the anti-Chinese laws and violent attacks on Chinese in America of the late 1800s. It isn’t necessary to dwell on the sad irony that these prejudices still generate violence, especially against Chinese woman and elders, despite the determination of the first Chinese Lady to reach out and teach.

(Watching Moy, in her beautiful blue-and-white costume, and seeing how her life and dreams shattered reminded me of a 2015 Metropolitan Museum exhibit, “China: Through the Looking Glass.” One of the costumes from that exhibit, similar to the one pictured, was fashioned by contemporary artist Li Xiaofeng from pieces of Chinese porcelain, simultaneously beautiful and broken.)

Theater production credits to Junghyun Georgia Lee (scenic design), Linda Cho (costumes), Shawn Duan (projections), Jiyoun Chang and Elizabeth Mak (lighting), and Fabian Obispo (composer, sound design). Contact the box office.

Photo credit for The Chinese Lady: Joan Marcus

Let the Oscar Countdown Begin!

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Only three days until this year’s Academy Award ceremony, and if you haven’t seen all the movies in the overstuffed “best picture” category, there’s hardly time. This category needs to be broken up in some way so that viewers and voters are comparing apples to apples or at least to other fruit. Which is better, political commentary or pure entertainment? A film with a mega-million special effects budget or a small gem? A star-studded romp or exciting new talent? Ten choices are about twice too many. At the very least they should separate musicals from dramas, but of course that may just be my advocacy of West Side Story showing.

Let me admit up front I’ve seen only seven of the “Best Picture” nominees. No Don’t Look Up (sounded too baldly polemical), no Dune (though I loved the book), and no Drive My Car (too depressing and long). And here’s where they could pare the list further. Why is Drive My Car both a “Best Picture” and a “Best International Feature” nominee? Pick a category, please.

Tastes vary, and viewers who like one genre of movie may not resonate with another. In my pair of films in the “why was this nominated?” category, you may have a favorite Sorry! My mystery nominees are Nightmare Alley (though people tell me the 1947 original was better) and Licorice  Pizza. The corollary to the “why?” question is “why not?” Why wasn’t the awesome The Tragedy of Macbeth nominated?

One thing I’d say about all seven nominees I saw, is that the acting this past year has been great. Another thing that can be said about many of them is, they’re too long. Some judicious editing would have helped.

Here are my five top Oscar contenders, in reverse order:

Coda – one of those small sweet films that will never win, and, anyway, the plot was disappointingly predictable; loved the fish stuff
King Richard – great characters and great acting (yes! Aunjanue Ellis), and if I could ever remember how tennis matches are scored, I would have gotten more out of the looong, decisive match
West Side Story – perfection; loved that sly Riff (Mike Faist)
The Power of the Dog – a mystery; haunting music, beautiful scenery, horses!; too long
Belfast – beautiful acting, well directed, powerful historical story

Image by Gia Knight for Pixabay.

Authors for Ukraine

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Mystery author Amy Patricia Meade sent out a call to authors to donate a book to be auctioned to raise money for CARE’s Ukraine Crisis Fund. Some 170 responded from the US, UK, and Canada, including me! The auction will take place from 8am EDT March 29 through 11 PM EDT April 12. Your book will be signed by the author with a message especially for you.

In the market for a good new book for yourself or friends and family with birthdays, anniversaries, moves, graduations, weddings, new babies (lots of reading time for them!), or want to help the people of Ukraine in every possible way? Here’s your chance.

The book I donated is Seascape, Best New England Crime Stories, which includes a wide range of engaging tales, including my short story, “The Ghost Who Read the Newspaper.” This story, based on a “real ghost” said to haunt a Washington, D.C., hotel, was selected for reprinting earlier this year in Black Cat Weekly. The successful bidder on this book will also receive a copy of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (Jul/Aug 2019), in which my story “New Energy” is the lead.

CARE’s Ukraine Crisis Fund is striving to reach four million people with immediate aid and recovery. This includes, food, water, hygiene kits, psychosocial support, and cash assistance. The program prioritizes women and girls, families, and the elderly.

Because the authors are handling shipping costs, the auction is limited to residents of the US and Canada. Especially if you’re a fan of cozy mysteries, you’ll appreciate this auction. And heaping praise on Amy for thinking of it and organizing it!

The Irish on Film

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In past St. Patrick’s Day posts I’ve talked about some of my favorite books set in Ireland or with strongly Irish characters (See those here and here.) Here are a few of my favorite movies about that story-laden land, old and new. Is it because there are more stories there, or because the Irish are such good story-tellers? Cannot say.

Belfast

Kenneth Branagh’s highly personal elegy to his home town in 1969, at the beginning of “The Troubles” certainly deserves its Academy Award Best Picture nomination (trailer). It captures the joy of childhood, as well as the anxieties of the adults in a Protestant family, where the neighborhood around them is devolving into religious violence. What a nine-year-old boy thinks of as adventure, his parents see as is mortal danger. Outstanding, should-have-been-nominated performances by Caitriona Balfe as the mother and Jamie Dornan as the father, Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds as the grandparents, and Jude Hill as the sunny boy.

Brooklyn

Remember Brooklyn? The 2015 film written by Nick Hornby about a young Irish immigrant , Eilis (Saoirse Ronan) in the 1950s (trailer). It’s an effective meditation on how all immigrants feel they have a foot in two places, that they are or could be living two entirely different lives. Compound that in Eilis’s case that the trip across the ocean coincides with growing up and starting her own life. Lots o  disruption for one spunky gal.

In the Name of the Father

Go back in time thirty years for this one, released in 1993 (trailer). Daniel Day-Lewis, in one of his awe-inspiring star turns, plays Belfast petty thief and general layabout Gerry Conlon. Falsely imprisoned on charges he participated in an IRA bombing, he’s in jail for fifteen years before the dogged efforts of the lawyer for his father, also falsely imprisoned, provides any hope of release. Pete Postlethwaite plays his father, and Emma Thompson the lawyer. Though fiction, the story is “inspired by true events.”

Sherlock Holmes at the Grolier Club

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This week my friend Nancy and I visited Manhattan’s Grolier Club, founded in 1884, a bibliophile’s paradise. On view there (until April 16) is the special exhibit, Sherlock Holmes in 221 Objects. Every mystery-lover will recognize the significance of that number.

Especially remarkable is that the 221 objects were selected from the riches of one obsessive collector, Glen S. Miranker, and a number of them are one-of-a-kind. His is a collection “rich in bibliographic rarities, manuscripts, books, correspondence, and artwork, all with intriguing stories to tell beyond their significance as literary and cultural landmarks.” Seeing Doyle’s small, careful handwriting as he makes notes about possible stories, or pens his drafts and writes to his publisher and Gillette, is truly a thrill.

If, as the Grolier Club flyer says, Conan Doyle’s creation became “a literary juggernaut,” it was a theatrical one, as well. London’s theater world wasn’t interested in the possibility of staging versions of Conan Doyle’s stories, but U.S. actor William Gillette (pictured) was, and he made it happen, playing the role of Holmes on US stages from 1899 to 1932.

The artwork from theater posters and programs, as well as the book covers of the many editions in which the stories appeared—both legitimately and pirated—often indelibly captures the Great Detective, sometimes in contemplation, pipe in hand, and sometimes on the hunt across the moors. And sometimes just in the Art Nouveau designs in vogue around the turn of the last century.

If you’re in New York in the next month, visit The Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street. Call ahead for a timed reservation, because the number of visitors at any one time is controlled. Masks required.

Baipás

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The nation’s English-language premiere of acclaimed Puerto Rican artist Jacobo Morales’s play Baipás, directed and choreographed by, Julio Monge, is currently on stage at George Street Playhouse. It premiered March 4 and runs through March 20 in New Brunswick, N.J.

Live theater has a special role in presenting real, flesh-and-blood people in challenging situations and seeing how they react, live, and, in the process, challenging audiences as well. Baipás (pronounced BI-pass) does that in ninety minutes while managing to be entertaining, romantic, sorrowful, and even funny.

A big part of its success can be attributed to the two performers: Maggie Bofill as Lorena and Jorge Luna as Antonio. They meet in a strange place—a bare room that might be somewhere in a hospital. They are decidedly human in an abstract space.The most recent event she remembers is being on a respirator after a serious suicide attempt, and what he remembers is undergoing coronary bypass surgery. From time to time they are aware of their “real” bodies, wherever they are: His heartbeat stops, to be revived by a kiss from her; she takes a breath on her own. In these moments the play captures the terror and confusion of hospitalization.

Lorena and Antonio wonder about the room. What is it? A waiting room for death? Who are these people watching them (us)? Among us, they believe they see people from their past—a dead ex-wife, a dead mother. Occasionally speaking about and to the audience is odd at first, yet makes us complicit in their search for understanding.

They circle each other like wary housecats, each taking a turn expressing guilt, fear, hope. Lorena repeatedly voices her mantra, “live in the moment,” but can’t quite do it, suffused by regrets and by curiosity about the future. Pre-heart attack, Antonio’s life was a mess. You’re relieved when they finally come into the moment to dance a love song, a bolero. Adrift in a sea of uncertainty, they find their moment in the dance.

The story unfolds in a bare, elevated box, decorated occasionally with projections that mirror what is going on inside Lorena and Antonio’s hearts. Mostly, there’s nothing there for them to hang onto except each other.

George Street should be congratulated for easing back into live-audience theater with such a complex, innovative, and memorable play. Author Morales is a poet, playwright, actor, and Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, while director Monge was an artistic collaborator on the recent high-powered remake of West Side Story, a production on which George Street’s Artistic Director, David Saint, served as Associate Producer.

Photo: T. Charles Erickson

2022 AA Nominees: Live-Action Shorts

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Academy Award, Oscar

Last weekend, our local movie theater showed this year’s Academy Award-nominated Live-Action Shorts. These do tend to be rather depressing, and this year’s nominees were no exception. Even so, we put ourselves through this, year after year, to see what talented filmmakers from around the world will come up with. Two are available for streaming using the links provided; otherwise, trailers are available.

You’ll have trouble believing this, but the most feel-good story was an end-of-life story from Denmark (which tells you something about the others). In “On My Mind,” a man (played by Rasmus Hammerich) wanders into a bar early one morning and seems determined to get drunk. He notices a karaoke machine and wants the sympathetic bartender (Camilla Bendix) to cue up “Always on My Mind” so he can sing it, and she can record it, for his dying wife. Alas, the bar-owner (Ole Boisen) is determined to complete work on his taxes, without distraction. Discussion ensues.

The satirical U.S. entry, “Please Hold,” (trailer) anticipates a future when law enforcement, incarceration, and legal aid are handled by drones and automated systems. The hero, a young Latino man (played by Erick Lopez) is arrested apparently for no reason and desperate to explain his plight to a human who can get him out of it. The film has quite a few funny bits, but overall it seems a cautionary tale of corporate technologists run amok. Kafka would love it.

“Alu Kachuu (Take and Run),” Switzerland’s entry (trailer), filmed in beautiful Kyrgyzstan, is the story of limited opportunities for women, made even more limited by forced marriage. Alina Turdumamatova plays the unwilling bride. Beautiful costumes! This film was shown last, and we were already so down in the dumps from two others that our mood colored reaction to this film, but it was excellent.

The Polish and UK entries (“The Dress” (trailer) and “The Long Goodbye,” respectively) were too depressing to revisit. Sorry.

Advice from Raymond Chandler

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Author Raymond Chandler, considered the godfather of hardboiled crime—don’t call it noir—stepped out of his fictional mean streets and into the real world on occasion and wrote some rather charming and forward-thinking essays of workplace advice: “Notes to an Employer” and “Advice to a Secretary.” Thank The Strand Magazine for reprinting these a few months back.

Chandler’s secretary at the time he wrote “Advice to a Secretary” was Juanita Messick, and it’s down-to-earth, simultaneously encouraging and, on some points, demanding. Chandler is expressing very clearly his own needs and starts by saying, “Never pretend to know something which you do not know, or only know imperfectly.” This dictum is routinely ignored in social media, but Chandler says it’s a prescription for misunderstanding.

It sounds as if he’s run up against sticklers of various types and considered it a bad experience. He didn’t welcome input about grammar, literary usages, and punctuation, believing there’s more latitude than purists might think, “Punctuation is an art and not a science.” It has to replicate, insofar as possible, the natural cadences of speech, which vary from what precise rules might suggest.

He tells Messick to never take anything for granted. Ask questions if something isn’t clear. “Demand an explanation.” Being my own secretary, I admit to interrogating myself frequently about sentences I wrote a month, or a week, or an hour before: “Yes, but what do you mean here? What are you trying to say?” Amazingly, words that seemed perfectly clear when I wrote them somehow manage to shed all significance. It’s the one advantage of a short attention span; every time I read something I’ve written, it’s new to me.

Chandler was uncomfortable with the employer-employee relationship and there’s no stronger egalitarian impulse today, seventy years later, than when he said, “If he (always a he in Chandler’s piece) is talking nonsense, tell him so; you can do him no greater service.” And he encourages the secretary to stick up for herself when she’s tired or late or must leave on the dot: “We are both just people.”Strand editor Andrew Gulli discovered “Advice to a Secretary” in a shoebox at Oxford University’s Bodleian Library.

Gulli was engaged by it in part because, he says, writers whose work embodies very dark themes often” are among the most friendly and benign people around.” In my experience, gatherings of mystery and crime writers bear out this impression. Certainly, “Advice to a Secretary” suggests a considerate and accommodating employer. Or, as Cynthia Conrad wrote in BookTrib, “For a moment we see the big-hearted softie under the tough-guy trench coat.”

Weekend Movie Pick: Death on the Nile

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If you’re hesitating to see Death on the Nile because you remember Kenneth Branagh’s previous expedition into the world of Dame Agatha—Murder on the Orient Express—and its tepid reviews, reconsider. The new film is enormous fun (trailer). You also may remember that many viewers couldn’t get past the super-sized mustache worn by Branagh (who plays Hercule Poirot)—such a contrast to David Suchet’s neat, restrained, Poirot-like pencil-line.

The extravagant facial hair just didn’t seem to fit, but the producers aren’t giving up. Instead, they give Poirot a touching back story that explains not only why he has the mustache, but links his adoption of it to his own heroism. Regardless, they’ve attracted a stellar cast to this new film, which includes Annette Bening, Tom Bateman, Dawn French, Sophie Okenedo, and a whole array of memorable supporting players.

There’s been a British society wedding. A beautiful young woman of great wealth (Israeli actor Gal Gadot) has married a man well below her financial station (Armie Hammer). His vengeful ex-girlfriend (Emma Mackey) follows them throughout their Egyptian honeymoon, making the new bride increasingly uneasy. To escape their pursuer, the couple entice the whole party of hangers-on to board a luxury Nile cruise boat where, as one gleefully anticipates, mayhem ensues.

Christie was a master at creating a closed world—a stranded railway car, a party on a remote island—throwing people with barely-masked resentments together, and letting audiences anticipate what happens next. In this film, the unraveling of motives, opportunity, and nerve doesn’t disappoint.

Loved the CGI scenery though, as you probably know, the Nile River does not run alongside the pyramids, but more than five miles west. A bit of geographic and artistic license, but gorgeous throughout. The scenes of the sun rising over the river were spectacular, bringing back memories of my own Nile cruise with my friend Nancy in 2019. Memorable, but many fewer dead bodies.

Rotten Tomatoes critics’ rating: 64%; audiences 82%.