Hello Junebugs! How is your summer going so far?
Our peonies have started to open; the fuschia ones just have buds, but the white ones have started to bloom in their snowy fragrant glory. Our vegetable garden (largely David's impetus, but I help out and enjoy it too) is planted with multiple varieties of herbs, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, and zucchini already soaking up the sun.
The orchestra season is wrapping up. We've had quite the concert lineup recently - last week was Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique and Corigliano's Piano Concerto with William Wolfram. That man is unbelievable. And I adored the Corigliano. Think Shostakovitchian orchestration with the lyricism of Samuel Barber, the percussion techniques of Joseph Schwantner, and the rhythmic complexity of Stravinsky, all in one thoroughly electric and stimulating piece. All of those composers are among my absolute favorites, so I was in my glory! But the concert, which also included Copland's Appalachian Spring (which, thankfully, I didn't have to play, since I'm definitely not a Copland fan), was really tiring.
This week, we have Doc Severinson's farewell week - the last concerts he will ever play before he retires - and all four concerts are sold out. I think they have been for a while. And then next week we have Mahler's 2nd Symphony, which I have never played onstage before (I did the offstage brass with Cinci a while ago, but it was only the last movement and I didn't even have to get dressed up, so I don't really count it as having played Mahler 2).
So keep your fingers crossed that I will survive through the end of the season.
So have you read any good books lately? If you liked Moby Dick and are in the mood for a wonderfully epic historical fiction, I can recommend Sena Jeter-Naslund's Ahab's Wife, a thoroughly researched escape into life in 1850's Nantucket through the eyes of Una, Captain Ahab's wife. It was so well-written, and I felt completely transported. It took a while to read, because the writing was so intricate and written in period dialect, but it was well worth it.
I also read the James Patterson mystery whodunnit thriller Mary Mary - which I also enjoyed but don't remember much about off the top of my head. (Fast-paced, action-packed adventures are often like that for me - fun at the time, but not especially memorable.)
I then explored a new author that Jen recommended for me. The brilliant young novelist's name is Zadie Smith, whose book White Teeth spans the British 1940's to present day and tracks the interrelationships of several intergenerational British immigrant familes and cultures - Jamaican Jehova's Witnesses, Bangladeshi Muslims, non-religious English. The ease with which Smith taps into and portrays each character so believably is truly stunning and made for a wonderful escape.
After that, the murder mystery genre was up again in the reading rotation. I had picked John Lescroart's The Hunt Club. It was published by Signet and was supposedly a New York Times Bestseller, which as I read it I found hard to justify. Not only was the story line plodding and often all dialogue/no action, but I had figured out who the murderer was halfway through - which made me impatient for the characters in the book to catch up with me. But what really steamed me was that I found several errors in spelling, grammar, and syntax as I read. And Signet is a reputable publishing house! It made me mad that I was wasting reading time on such a book. I will not buy this author again, because life is too short to read crappy books. The climax of the mystery was moderately entertaining, I'll admit, but I give it 2 stars, at best.
So now I'm reading The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, which is good so far; I will keep you posted. After that, I think I'll be in for a quality "chick lit" romp - like Jennifer Weiner's Little Earthquakes or Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger (she wrote The Devil Wears Prada).
So what are you reading lately? And how do your gardens grow? ;) Post comments and let me know....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Hello dearest! Completely envious of your popping peonies-they are faves of mine, and I can't find the right spot on our postage stamp lawn to give them a home.
Tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, eggplant, banana peppers, broccoli, and sweet peas all have a home in our tiny raised bed gardens this year. I love watching them grow, can't wait to see what comes out of it. We're also participating in 2 CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) programs this year, so we'll be getting shares of fresh produce from "real" farmers throughout the growing season. Can't wait!
So glad to know that life is good. The best book I've read recently is Caucasia by Danzey Senna. Brilliant, thoughtful, moving.
Thanks so much for your great post, I've been missing your blog. :)
love, yogini
The peonies here have been mostly rained and blown off in a wind and rain storm a week ago. But they were gorgeous before that.
I have a bunch of veggies growing in my Earth Box. The only problem is that the bean plants do not seem to want to keep growing healthy leaves. I'm hoping that will get better.
Reading. I finished _Good in Bed_. It was...um, very too-terribly-much close to home. Weiner is an excellent author, though - the work was well written.
I read _The Alchemist_, which I really enjoyed, mostly because it was all plot and no excessively descriptive passages. A bit too feel-good-y at times, but I think I really needed that at the time.
_White Teeth_ is next. And I've got a bunch of field-specific stuff about 18th-century aesthetics that I'm looking forward to tearing apart.
I had to laugh when I saw peonies! In the show I just closed, "Leading Ladies", my character had a little rant at the end at his friend for making them have to dress up as women: "I'm in a dress, for God's sake!! With a petticoat!! And lace knickers with little flowers on them..... I think they're peonies..." I would always pull up the petticoat and look at the flowers on the bottom of the pantaloons I was wearing and would stop my rant and give a little "oooo!" before I said, "I think their peonies" as if it was just dawning on me. But that's as close to a garden as I get since I'm nine stories up with only a northern view!
As to books, I haven't read one in forever, although I remember re-reading "Up The Down Staircase" which is one of the first books that ever made me laugh out loud and laugh so hard I would have to put the book down and wipe the tears from my eyes. I did try to start reading "Wicked"... twice. I took it up again when I was at the cabin a month ago and got a lot further - to a much more readable section (Galinda's first day at university) - but I haven't had any time to read since then. Such is the life of an actor!
Hi darlin!
We were both born minus the gardening gene, I'm afraid. But I am considering starting an herb garden in pots. So many yummy recipes call for a few springs of fresh mint or basil, and I hate having to buy a huge bag from the market and then having 95+% of it go to waste.
I've been reading more lately too, as the jobs slowly wind down for summer. Lately it's been either non-fiction or chick lit. I finally read "The Obesity Myth" and another similar one that came out this year, "Fat Politics". Both authors independently came up with the same conclusions--it was extremely eye-opening for me and is helping me realize how much I fall for all the "Obesity Epidemic" hype.
I Love Jennifer Weiner too! I just finished "Goodnight Nobody", a sort of chick lit murder mystery. I think you'd really enjoy it--very entertaining brain candy. "The Nanny Diaries" as well--I never read it when it came out a few years back. Hilarious and outrageous at the same time.
Love, Karinia xo
Post a Comment