Friday 5ive- Christmas Catchup 2022

It's been awhile since we've had a Friday 5ive, between being so busy at work and with Christmas preparations. The first Friday 5ive of 2023 contains five things that made me happy during Christmas of 2022. We spent Christmas as a family at our home in Florida so we were all together in a sunny, warm climate.

1)  On our first night, we went to Owen's Fish Camp in Sarasota. They have the best fish dishes in a casual atmosphere. They don't take reservations and it's always busy, so we lucked out only having to wait a few minutes for our delicious dinners. There is a scupture of a man sitting at the entrance holding a beer that looks so life-like it makes many people take a second look to see if it a real person sitting there.

2)  On Christmas Eve, we made a new dessert, a Strawberry Trifle Cake, made with already prepared angel food cake so it was a little lighter in calories. My creative daughter-in-law decorated the top of the cake with strawberries and blueberries to look like a Christmas tree. I found the recipe on Pinterest from Uncommon Designs Online here.

3)  While the guys golfed, my daughter-in-law and I hit up the Barnes & Noble big 50% off hardcover sale the day after Christmas. The B&N we visited was huge, and had the biggest Children's section I have ever seen. It's a gorgeous store and I picked up Christmas cards for next year, three hardcover books, and this cute Season's Readings snow globe. It was a worthwhile visit indeed.

This is just a portion of the B&N children's section

4)  There is a Little Free Library on the main road in our area. My son's dog Otto and I walked there everyday to refresh the books from my own library. After the second time we refilled the library, Otto looked up at me wanting a treat for our good deed. Dogs learn fast! 

5) We stopped to get a drink at the Longboat Key Club and they had a beautiful Christmas tree up in their lobby so we took a photo next to it. The funny thing is, we stopped back in on New Year's Eve and they had the tree taken down like it was never there. They work quickly.

I hope you all had a happy holiday season and I wish you a happy, healthy 2023 to you all.
 

This post was shared on The Intrpeid Reader's Weekend Cooking post. You can read more food related posts here.

Jacqueline Winspear at Barnes & Noble

There is only one long-running mystery series that I have read all the way through- Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series.  We first met Maisie as a young child and have watched her as she worked as an ambulance driver and nurse in WWI France, followed in her mentor's footsteps and became a private investigator, and now in the 15th book in the series, The American Agent, Maisie is again working as volunteer ambulance driver in WWII London during the Blitz.

Winspear made an appearance at Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side in Manhattan last week and a fellow Maisie fan (and Book Cellar volunteer) Allison and I were thrilled to be part of the standing-room only crowd to hear her speak.

Tom Santropietro and Jacqueline Winspear

Tom Santropietro interviewed Winspear and he began by asking her to describe how she got the idea for Maisie. Winspear said she was driving in a rainstorm in her home in California when she saw Maisie coming up from a train station in London in a fog. She knew Maisie's story right away, everything about her in that vision, which she called a "moment of artistic grace". She came out of it when the car behind honked his horn, asking what particular shade of green she was waiting for the light to turn.

In The American Agent, Maisie is called upon to assist an American Department of Justice official in investigating the murder of an American female war correspondent. Winspear spoke of all of the female war correspondents who inspired her character (Martha Gelhorn, Margaret Higgins, Dickie Chappell).

I particularly liked Winspear's comment that whereas male war correspondents wrote and spoke about tactics, military strategy and weapons, the women "bore witness to the human cost of war", how it affected men, women and families.

She also spoke of how the wireless radio made a big change in how WWII was viewed differently than WWI. The advent of everyone having a radio meant that the war was immediately broadcasted into people's homes. A young Edward R. Murrow's radio broadcasts back home to America helped push American sentiment into entering the war to aid the Allies. (He makes an appearance in the novel.)

Winspear grew up in England, and her parents lived through WWII. She spoke about how little they talked about their experiences. The people of England truly followed the adage "Keep Calm and Carry On".

Santropietro asked Winspear about her most famous fans, the Clinton family. She said she was gobsmacked  when Bill Clinton was quoted in the NY Times saying that Maisie Dobbs was one of his favorites. Then she learned that Hillary, her mother and Chelsea all loved Maisie. She has heard from many fans that they read Maisie Dobbs as a family, and how that delights her.

The American Agent is one of the strongest books in the Maisie Dobbs series, perhaps because the stakes are so high here as everyone is affected by the war coming to London via the Blitz. My review of the book can be found here.

Tom Perrotta At Barnes & Noble

Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta
Published by Scribner ISBN 9781501144028
Hardcover, $26, 307 pages

The first book I read by author Tom Perrotta, like many other people, is Little Children, about an affair between a stay-at-home mom and a stay-at-home dad who meet at the playground. Perrotta had young children at that time, so the novel's characters were at the same place in their lives as he was.

Now Perrotta is in his fifties (as am I), and he is facing empty nest syndrome as is the main character in his latest introspective novel, Mrs Fletcher. Perrotta visited Barnes & Noble's 86th Street store on the Upper East Side to talk about it, and other things, last week.

He began by reading a chapter Trouble In Sunset Acres, which is told in the voice of Eve Fletcher's young coworker Amanda, events coordinator at the senior community center where they both work. (The best line in that funny chapter is when Amanda says that "when you are an events coordinator there is always someone to make you miserable." I used to be an events coordinator, so I can totally relate.)

Perrotta then took questions from the audience, which were particularly insightful. One questioner commented on the topic of gender appropriation, as Perrotta wrote from the perspective of Eve. As Perrotta mentioned, it is usually a question of race appropriation that is brought up, but since sex and identity is a major theme in Mrs. Fletcher, it was a good question.

Perrotta responded that "novels can't exist in a world where a writer's imagination is limited". He believes that identity "is at the heart of what divides us as a culture", and that it is "important to find the balance between appropriation and inclusion".

In Mrs. Fletcher, Eve and her college freshman son Brendan are both struggling with identity. Eve is a single mom, now all alone, and after she receives a sexually explicit text message from someone calling her a MILF, she Googles MILF and falls down a rabbit hole of pornography.

She starts a habit of searching out MILF pornography almost every night, and the night class that she takes at the community college on Gender and Society is taught by Margot, a transgender woman who used to be Mark, a college basketball standout, so sex and identity is explored in this intriguing novel.

Perrotta said that he has a fascination with the cultural discourse of sex and gender, and that he wanted to write about pornography because everyone is affected by it, but we don't talk about it. He wanted to embed it in the normal suburban world he knows about.

A question was asked about why he wrote son Brendan in the first person, but Eve and the others are written in the third person. Perrotta responded that he knows that "young man jock" voice well, and thought that it would be more jarring to hear Brendan speak, thus showing the sense of the different worlds that Eve and Brendan inhabit.

What I found most interesting about Mrs. Fletcher is that Perrotta really seems to inhabit each of these characters- Eve, Amanda, Brendan, Amber, Margot, Julian. They are all distinct and feel like people you would meet in this town and college campus.

He also nails the pervasive feeling of loneliness: of a mom whose only child is now gone to college, the jock who goes to college to party and finds that it is not what he expected, the young woman starting a career and looking for friendship, a young man who falls apart after he is bullied in high school.

I have to say that the end of this book truly surprised me. I thought he may be going in one direction, and he went a different way (which I liked). I asked him if he knew the ending before he wrote the book, and he said no, the characters take him to where the story will end.

Perrotta also spoke of his experience working on HBO's The Leftovers, which recently ended its three year run on a high note. He loved the experience, and we discussed how the show will probably be treated more kindly by people as the years pass. (Maybe like The Wire?)

Mrs. Fletcher is a fascinating look at a moment in time when gender and identity are being explored by so many in our culture. Social media and the easy availablity of the internet allows people to be exposed to people and ideas that we may never have been before, in the privacy of our own home. Perrotta places his story in everyday suburbia to emphasize that fact.

I highly recommend Mrs. Fletcher; it's funny, poignant, thought-provoking and yes, even a little provocative, everything you want in a good novel.

Chris Bohjalian at Barnes & Noble

Although this past Tuesday was pouring rain outside, it didn't deter a full house of hearty New Yorkers from joining author Chris Bohjalian to hear about his latest novel, The Sleepwalker, at the 86th St. Barnes & Noble in Manhattan.

Bohjalian began his talk by saying that in the not-too-distant past his book sold briskly only to people with his same last name. He then gave a few examples of book events that he said we designed by the gods to humble him.

 When he arrived at a bookstore signing in Seattle, he didn't see any of his books in the store. Thinking they were sold out (yay!), he found a staff member who told him that they ordered three copies and they were still in the store. He was taken to a dark place in the back of the store, and on a high shelf that only Shaquille O'Neal could reach, were his three books. He asked the staff person if he should sign the books, and was told "No, our readers are very discriminating." Ouch.

At a book signing in San Francisco, a man came up to him and asked him if her had heard that author Robert Parker had died that day. Bohjalian said yes, he had heard. Then the man asked if he knew that J.D. Salinger had recently died, as did Howard Zinn. When Bohjalian told the man he had heard that as well, the man asked him "Are ya worried?"

At another panel discussion, Adriana Trigiani and Alan Tennant were also on the stage. Tennant brought out a falcon and for an hour, everyone was entranced by the falcon. After an hour, Bohjalian finally got a question from the audience, someone asking him how the reviews were for his latest book. When he was about to answer, the falcon pooped on Tennant's arm, prompting the the comment "At least we know what the bird thought."

After these chuckles, Bohjalian got down to business, talking about the research he did for The Sleepwalker. He learned that people sleep-cook, sleep-drive, have sleep-sex, and even sleep-murder, all while having no memory of this at all. People who sleepwalk, their motor activity part of their brain is awake, while the judgement part of the brain is asleep.

He cited a statistic that in the 28 times that lawyers have used the sleepwalker defense for their clients accused of crimes while asleep, 15 acquittals were won. The audience found that fascinating.

Bohjlalian also shared a sleepwalking experience his family had. They were on vacation in Rome, staying at a small boutique hotel. They were awakened in the middle of the night by a breeze coming in their room from the open doors to the balcony. There was their 9 year-old daughter ready to climb on top of the balcony. She was sound asleep, sleepwalking. (Children are more prone to sleepwalking and frequently grow out of it.)

That incident inspired an important scene in The Sleepwalker.

What Bohjalian's books have in common, since he writes about so many different topics, are two things- a sense of dread and characters dealing with regret. His daughter, now a young woman, told him that messed-up women seems to be "his sweet spot", and Bohjalian says that he finds it more interesting to write about women. "Women are better people", he said.

During an interesting Q&A session, in which tote bags filled with Bohjalian's books were given away, he said The Sandcastle Girls, his amazing book about the Armenian genocide of 1915 "was the blessing of his life." He also said that he doesn't outline his books, he prefers for his characters to lead him through the story.

Then we got to my favorite part of book talks- what is the author reading? Bohjalian showed the audience his current favorites:
Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, which he said deserves every award it has gotten. (I agree.)
American Housewife  by Helen Ellis, which is hilarious (I also agree!). Helen was in the audience as well.
Dead Wake- Erik Larsen's newest book about the Lusitania
Small Great Things- Jodi Picoult's latest book about race
Political Suicide - Erin McHugh's timely books about the crazy things politicians have done
Black Water - a mystery by Louise Doughty
This Was Not The Plan- Cristina Alger's new book (Cristina was in attendance as well)
Blackout - Sarah Hepola's memoir

Bohjalian also mentioned that The Sandcastle Girls will be a movie. The producer has funding and casting has begun, with filming to begin this summer in the Middle East and Spain. That is great news!

He closed by praising bookstores who host author events, and asking the audience to support bookstores by buying books- any book, not necessarily his. I bought two copies of The Sleepwalker and a copy of Jane Harper's The Dry Season  because I have heard such good things.

My review of The Sleepwalker is here.
Chris Bohjalian's website is here.

Erin McHugh at Barnes & Noble

Political Suicide By Erin McHugh
Published by Pegasus Books ISBN 9781605989785
Hardcover, $26.95, 256 pages

In a political season that no one could have seen coming, Erin McHugh has written the perfect book to accompany all the craziness- Political Suicide- Missteps, Peccadilloes, Bad Calls, Backroom Hijinx, Sordid Pasts, Rotten Breaks, And Just Plain Dumb Mistakes In The Annals Of American Politics.

McHugh spoke at Barnes & Noble 86th St. store in Manhattan a few weeks ago, the day after Ted Cruz dropped out the Presidential race, a week after he chose Carly Fiorina as his imaginary Vice-Presidential running mate. She introduced herself by saying "for those of you who don't know me, from Monday to Tuesday, I was briefly Ted Cruz's Secretary of State", which elicited huge laughs from the crowd.

Erin McHugh

Although we think this year's circus atmosphere is unusual, McHugh's book belies that fact. She read a few pieces from the book, starting with Robert Potter, a Congressman from North Carolina who castrated not one, but two men- a minister and a young boy, both of whom he believed were having an affair with his wife. In the South, castrating someone is called "potterizing".

She spoke of Marion Zioncheck, a Washington state Congressman who has the distinction of being the only sitting congressperson sent to an asylum. (I'm sure some citizens have other nominations for this category.)

Rita Crundwell committed the largest municipal fraud we never heard of, stealing over $53 million in her position as comptroller and treasurer of Dixon, Illinois, Ronald Reagan's hometown. It took her 30 years, and while she was stealing from the town to fund her horse farm and expensive clothes, furs and jewelry, the town literally fell apart. Roads didn't get paved, police cars went unrepaired. This one shocked me.

Familiar scandals like Senator Bob Packwood and Congressman Wilbur Mills sexual escapades were recounted, and although we have had some more recent scandals, like the Anthony Weiner sexting incident, McHugh's book features incidents that have already completed their story. We'll have to wait for the sequel to hear about those other ones.

In the lively Q&A section of the program, McHugh talked about the huge amount of research she did for this, starting with lists on Google and then researching many hours at the library. When asked what the standards of conduct are today versus history, McHugh replied that today's standards are low.

McHugh bemoaned the fact that people seem to have no manners anymore in the political arena. "They go one more step and one more step and next thing you know, you're talking about your member" in a national debate for President.

The media and the 24-hour news cycle contributes to this course discourse, and with the 2016 Presidential race gearing up, Erin McHugh's Political Suicide is the perfect book to pick up to remind yourself that our nation has survived political craziness before, hopefully we can yet again.

The short chapters make it an easy read, and political junkies will want to add this fun book to their collection. I highly recommend it.

McHugh also has two other timely books- Like My Father Always Said for Father's Day and Like My Teacher Always Said, which makes a great teacher's gift. You can find them here and here.

Broadway's Something Rotten at Barnes & Noble

The cast of the fabulous Broadway show, Something Rotten, made an appearance at Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side in NYC to promote the CD release of the cast recording of the show. They sang three fantastic songs from this amazing show, and then signed CDs.

The cast of Something Rotten

I saw the show last month and it is the one show I would recommend to everyone. The premise is that Nigel (John Cariani) and Nick (Brian d'Arcy James) Bottom are brothers who are playwrights in England at the same time as Shakespeare. Nick doesn't understand why everyone thinks Shakespeare is so great, and Nigel worships the man.

The Bottom brothers need a hit, and Nick goes to visit Nostradamus (the fabulous Tony-nominated Brad Oscar) to see if he can find out what kind of show he needs to write to have a hit show. This results in the show-stopping tune A Musical that contains snippets of songs from some of the most iconic Broadway musicals of all time (Annie, Rent, Sweet Charity, Chicago, Phantom of the Opera-you get the idea). The audience gave this number a middle-of-the-show standing ovation, something I've only seen once, for the Genie in Aladdin, played by Tony winner James Monroe Iglehart.

Shakespeare in the show is portrayed by the brilliant Christian Borle, who won the Tony for his portrayal of Shakespeare as a combination of Prince/James Brown/Mick Jagger. He was born to play this role, similar to his other Tony-winning performance as Black Stache in Peter and the Star Catcher. (He's  a nice guy too. And Brian d'Arcy James has the most beautiful eyes and the kindest smile.)


Other standouts in the cast include Heidi Blickenstaff as Nick's wife Bea, Michael James Scott as Minstrel and Brooks Ashmanskas as Brother Jeremiah.

At Barnes and Noble, they opened with another great number, God, I Hate Shakespeare, which highlights the terrific talents of Brian d'Arcy James (Nick) and John Cariani (Nigel). These guys have a great brotherly chemistry.


Cariani and Kate Reinders sang the next song, the sweetly comedic I Love the Way.


Christian Borle finished the performances with the Queen-sounding Hard to Be the Bard, which is also a favorite from the show.


This is the perfect show- funny, great songs, and a fantastic cast- and it is a must-see even at full price.
The Something Rotten website is here.

Like My Father Always Said by Erin McHugh

Like My Father Always Said by Erin McHugh
Published by Abrams Image ISBN 9781419716218
Hardcover, $14.95, 142 pages

Last year author Erin McHugh had a big hit with her little book, Like My Mother Always Said, filled with bits of wisdom, advice and humorous sayings from moms, shared by their children. It was funny, sweet and touching.

McHugh is back this year with her logical followup, Like My Father Always Said- Gruff Advice, Sweet Wisdom and Half-Baked Instructions on How to Fix Your Stuff and Your Life, just in time for Father's Day.

Speaking before an enthusiastic group at her book launch at Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side in New York City, McHugh shared how after Like My Mother Always Said was published, she heard from so many people who asked her "don't you want to know what my dad said?", and she was off and running.

Erin McHugh at Barnes & Noble

McHugh said that within a day of asking people on Facebook and Twitter to send her their dad-isms, she started getting a feeling that this was going to be a different book from the mom's. Mom's advice was about watching out for the child- their safety, their emotions. Dads, however, wanted to make sure you "had a firm handshake and a secure 401K."

Dads seemed to be more a product of their time, and some of their sayings "sound like they came from a 1940's movie", like the one dad who would say "Give me a drink, I can still hear the kids", or the one who asked his rambunctious kids "Who put a nickel in you?", a reference to the days when you would find mini jukeboxes on restaurant tables.

Some of the dads had some good serious advice. Casey told his sons Peter and Paul:

"There's only one thing you can both keep and give: your word."

Keith told his son Connor:

"Just don't be 'that kid'. Whatever the situation, you never want to be the one everyone else refers to as "Oh yeah, I know that kid.' It's never good."

Some dads had funny things to say. Bob told his son Dick:

"Stay single! But if you're going to get married, get married in the morning. Because if it doesn't work out, you haven't wasted the whole day." 

Jim's older brother frequently invited Jim and his wife to join them at Red Sox games or out for a sail on the weekend, and kept getting turned down. Finally, an exasperated Jim told his older brother that they couldn't go out on the weekends, because he had teenage children and had to wait at home for the police to call. (This was pre-cell phone days.)

Erin's own father is in the book. When Erin was away at college, her dad would send her cards and letters and he would always include "photo of Andrew Jackson to add to her Presidential portrait collection."

Like My Father Always Said is a wonderful book to give to the favorite dad in your life.  Reading it aloud will encourage you and your siblings and friends to share your own dads' hilarious and worthwhile pearls of wisdom. I guarantee it will bring a smile to your face. (And how can you resist the cover photo?)

rating 5 of 5

 

Meeting Hillary Rodham Clinton

Unless you haven't been paying attention to the news, you probably know that Hillary Rodham Clinton, former First Lady and Secretary of State, wrote a book titled Hard Choices that published this week. It covers mostly her time as Secretary of State, and the choices both she and the Obama administration had to make during difficult times.

The first stop on her book tour was this past Tuesday at the Barnes & Noble Union Square store. The store was scheduled to hand out wrist bands at 8am, and I felt comfortable getting to the store at 6:30am. When the taxi pulled up, I saw a huge line of people who had obviously slept overnight outside the store. It looked like the line outside the Today Show when One Direction is playing a concert on the plaza. By the time 8am rolled around, there was close to 1000 people in line.

The line snaked down 17th Street, up Park Ave. South and headed up 18th Street where I ended up, about 250th in line in my estimation. Luckily, I had a book with me to keep me company, although watching the people turn the corner hoping we were the end of the line, only to see the look of dismay cross their faces as they realized the line went all the way down another block, kept us amused.

At 8am, they opened the store to let us in, 20 at a time. We went to the cash register, paid for our book (limit one) and then formed a new line to go to the second floor where we checked our bags. We were told verbally and in writing (they gave us all an instruction sheet) that we could take our cell phone and wallet ONLY with us. But security told us if it didn't fit in our pocket, we had to check it. (If you had no pockets, like me, you were out of luck.)

This was the one glitch in an otherwise well-oiled machine; they could have given us that information online and we all would have been better prepared. I have been to many, many big book signings (including Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter), and never have I had to check my purse.

We waited in line again to get up to the third floor where we got wanded before heading up to the fourth floor, the events floor. This store process took about an hour, so we waited in line again for another two hours or so. At least my group was in the actual event space, but we couldn't sit down. Normally, we sit in chairs, but the setup was all the press in front of the signing table, all of us behind them.

I didn't have a book with me, but just my luck I ended up standing next to table that had Colm Toibin's book of short stories, The Empty Family. I finished four of the stories while I waited. We all watched for signs, and when we saw Huma Abedin, Clinton's top aide, we knew Ms. Clinton would be there soon.

She walked in to thunderous applause and cheers, and she looked lovely in her bright pink jacket. The press took photos, she spoke a few words, and the signing began. It took another hour for me to get to the front of the line. She shook hands with all of us, and responded to our words.

I congratulated her on the upcoming grandbaby and then, like everyone else, told her that I hope she runs; our country needs her. She thanked me for coming and buying her book. She signed the book, and then we were handed the signed book. And like that it was over.

It was a six-hour process, but well worth the wait. I admire Ms. Clinton a great deal. The thing that struck me most about the crowd was the diversity of it; it looked like all of America. We were old and young, men and women, black, white, Asian, East Asian, Latino. The most surprising group there were young men, many of them about my sons' ages, early twenties. If these people were willing to wait 4-6 hours to meet Mrs. Clinton, I'd say she has a large, diverse group ready to vote for her if she runs.

Bette Midler in Conversation With Judy Gold at Barnes & Noble

When I was in high school, my first big job was working at a brand new movie theater. One of the first movies we had was The Rose, starring Bette Midler. I saw that movie dozens of times, and I was mesmerized by Midler's amazing performance. (PS- she should have won the Oscar that year- she wuz robbed!)

Her next project was a world tour, which she had never done. She chronicled the tour in a book, A View From A Broad, published in 1984 and I still have my copy. Simon and Schuster is reissuing the book, now in hardcover, and Ms. Midler celebrated this with a conversation with comedian Judy Gold at Barnes & Noble Union Square in New York City, her adopted home.

The crowd was large, and many of us waiting almost seven hours to see the woman known as the Divine Miss M. When she took her seat at 7pm, she began by saying that she was happy to be in a bookstore, "one of her favorite places". (This is true, she has spotted many times in the Barnes & Noble in my neighborhood.)

Gold asked her if anything surprised her about this book, and Midler replied that she was "surprised by how funny it was."  She was also surprised by how she "kept the worst parts of myself out" of the book. Written when she was just 35 years old, it is a snapshot of a younger, more hopeful Midler.

Judy Gold and Bette Midler

She touched upon her childhood in Hawaii, and how her parents used to drop her and her two older sisters off at the library at 8am on Saturdays and pick them up at 4pm, and it was heaven for her. All of the girls still have a love of reading.

Moving on, Gold asked Midler the one question she dreads- "How was it working in the bathhouses?", which is a running gag in the book, with different headlines describing the demise of Midler, all with the same the subline- "Started Career At Continental Baths".

Midler got a job on Broadway at the age of 22, working first in the chorus, then as the eldest daughter in Fiddler on the Roof.  She said that the first year it was OK, the second year she began going on other auditions and by the third year, she was asking "Who do you f(expletive deleted) to get out of here?" The audience roared.

From there, she put together a cabaret act and took it on the road, singing old classics. She opened for Ella Fitzgerald, and at Mr. Kelly's in Chicago, she opened for "the meanest man in show business, Mort Sahl."

She was on the stage  at the Lake Geneva Nightclub the night George Carlin became hip, taking off his tie and becoming the comic we all remember him to be. (He brought plastic vomit onstage and was fired.) The rest is comic history.

She got an offer to work at the Continental Bathhouse, and since the money was better than Fiddler, she took it.

Gold asked Midler about the characters in her stage shows, and Midler said that since she wasn't the best singer, she needed to be entertaining. When pressed, she said that mermaid Dolores Del Lago, the Toast of Chicago has a special place in her heart because she was pompous and a bit of a jerk. (I like Sophie Tucker best.)

They talked costumes, and Midler spoke of her mother who sewed her children's clothes. From this came Midler's profound respect for her costume designers and the builders of the costumes who had to "figure out how to keep these tits up!" (More uproarious laughter from the crowd.)

Bette Midler signing books- love the hat!

Midler also told a funny story from her recent Vegas stint. She volunteered to perform at a fundraiser for the Shoah Foundation, which makes videos of Holocaust survivors telling of their horrible ordeal. They showed a 35 minute film about the survivors and then the emcee says "And now here's Bette Midler!"

Midler says everyone was very somber and sad and she and her Harlettes come out in their showgirl costumes and "we're all tits and ass" and they performed for 30 minutes and rushed off the stage and out the door, mortified. I guess no good deed goes unpunished.

Things became a little serious as Midler talked about how a side trip to Thailand during her first world tour made her reconsider her thoughts on war. It is a beautiful story in the book, and she also said that as she ages, she finds her views on government, social engineering, poverty, education and inequality have evolved.

Her love of New York City was discussed, and she got the most applause at the mention of her foundation,  New York Restoration Project, which plants trees (one million is their goal) and cleans up parks and public areas and creates gardens. When they say that one person can't make a difference, you can point to Ms. Midler and her determination to clean up our city to refute that. She is a good citizen.

At the age of 68, Midler looks fabulous. She has killer legs, and she boasts that she "has the most beautiful body, it can do anything, I can turn into a pretzel. I honor my body, it's my temple. Now go f(expletive deleted) yourself!" (More laughter- this crowd loves the bawdy Ms. Midler.)

Although she wanted to be a rocker, Midler admits she will be remembered most for her ballads, such as "From a Distance" and "Wind Beneath My Wings". Some of her personal favorites are "Shiver Me Timbers", "Hello In There" and "Some People's Lives".

She ended her 45 minute talk saying "It's nice to be with book lovers in a New York City crowd!". We all concurred.

Ms. Midler signed books and CDs, and when it was my turn, I told her we had met last year in Luke's Lobster and that I saw her in her one woman Broadway show, I'll Eat You Last, and loved her performance. She looked at me and said very sincerely  "Thank you so much for that- that's means so much to me."

It was worth the seven hour wait.

Armistead Maupin In Conversation With John Searles at Barnes & Noble

Last night I attended an conversation with Armistead Maupin and John Searles (author of the excellent Help For The Haunted) at Barnes and Noble on the Upper East Side. I confess that I have never read Maupin, but I did buy his first book in the Tales of the City series for $1.99 on Kindle recently, and last night I bought his last book in the series, The Days of Anna Madrigal, so I will catch up.

John Searles and Armistead Maupin at Barnes & Noble

The room was filled to capacity last night, and many more people were watching from outside the room by the time it began. Maupin has a very dedicated and fervent following, and they were hanging on his every word and laughing at all of his inside jokes.

Searles began by telling how he came to read Maupin, finding a copy of Tales of the City at a used book store when he was teen and being intrigued by the orange cover. His father was a long distance trucker, and he was to accompany his dad on a trip in the hopes it would make a man of him. (He joked that it failed, but he did become a Maupin fan for life.)

Searles also said that as he was reading Maupin's books on the subway, he was approached by several people, all who wanted to talk about Maupin's books. Maupin told a story about a man who was stabbed on the subway, saved from injury by the hardcover copy of Maupin's book that he had in his jacket. (See kids, reading can save your life!)

Maupin spoke of being inspired by Christopher Isherwood's novel A Single Man, and wanted to write a story that had characters who happen to be gay. He spoke of the beginnings of the idea for the books, when he wrote a daily 800-word column (yikes!) for the San Francisco Chronicle about dating and life in the city, which he found "exhilarating and scary".

He spoke of his editor who had a chart in his office with two columns- "Heterosexual" and "Homosexual". On that chart, he would keep track of the people Maupin wrote about in his columns, with the imperative being that there must always be more hashmarks in the "Heterosexuals" column.

Maupin says he is a slow, deliberate writer, writing just two pages a day. "Breezy writing takes time" he said. He spoke of hearing the "music in the paragraph", and of sometimes spending much time looking for a three-syllable word that will fit in the paragraph to maintain the rhythm he wanted.

Searles asked him if aging was on his mind in these most recent books, and Maupin broke the crowd into peals of laughter with his response "it was the pictures that got smaller", the famous Norma Desmond line from Sunset Boulevard.

Also covered were the HBO miniseries based on Tales of the City, starring Laura Linney and Olympia Dukakis (whom he dedicated this new book to), why he moved to Sante Fe (San Francisco is getting too expensive), and most important, why is Mary Ann such a bitch? (He gets asked that question all the time.)

Searles asked him what he most wanted to people to know, and his answer was beautiful. He said he wanted people to know that "life is messy and beautiful, that friends get us through it and love is everything."

It really was a wonderful evening, and I enjoy listening to two terrific authors in conversation more that just an author reading when the questions are thoughtful and draw out the author, as Searles did so well. The only thing that would have made more memorable would be if in took place "in Paris", a phrase that Searles says will make any story more exciting when you place it at the end.

Armistead Maupin's website is here.
John Searles' website is here.

Ann Patchett at Barnes & Noble

I remember falling in love with Ann Patchett's writing when I read the elegant Bel Canto, about a group of people held hostage by terrorists in a South American country at the home of the country's vice-president in honor of Powerful Japanese businessman. One of the hostages was opera singer Roxanne Cross, a truly unforgettable character in literature. I was mesmerized living in this world as I read.

Patchett recently appeared at Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side to discuss her latest book of essays, This Is The Story Of A Happy Marriage.  There was a full house of Patchett enthusiasts, many of us who dragged our extensive collections of her books for a signature. One woman brought her little dog, which drew an delightful "So glad you brought a dog!' from Patchett, who explained that they have four store dogs that hang out at Parnassus, the bookstore she co-owns in Nashville.

Ann Patchett at Barnes & Noble

This book of essays came about when Niki, a young friend of Patchett's who came to live with her and her husband, was organizing the bins of tear sheets filled with articles that Patchett had written over the years for many publications, including Vogue, Harper's and Bridal Guide. Niki told her that there was a book in there, and she set out to pull out the ones she thought would work.

Patchett wasn't sure; she re-read many of them and said "there were three or four brilliant ones, the rest were grocery lists." So she would take one of the essays out of the running, write a new one in it's place, and eventually the collection came together to stitch together the quilt of Patchett's life.

The book is marvelous. It takes us on Patchett's journey, from a young girl, a daughter of divorce, through her marriage to an older man that ended badly, getting her M.F.A., the importance of writing in her life, her best friend Rosie (her dog), through her second marriage and opening up her bookstore.

Some of the strongest essays in the book are Dog Without End, (about the end of Rosie's life and the horrible grief that Patchett went through; anyone who has lost a beloved pet will relate), The Wall (The story of her taking LAPD police academy test and her relationship with her policeman father) and the title essay, about love and marriage.

She read aloud The Bookstore Strikes Back, about her interesting journey to owning an independent bookstore. Sometimes authors read from their book and they are not exciting readers, but Patchett was a great reader, full of enthusiasm, with the listeners hanging on her every carefully chosen word.

When I came into the store, I saw some of Patchett's backlist and two other titles: Jeannette Haien's The All of It and Geoffrey Wolff's (Tobias' brother) A Day at the Beach. Patchett ended her talk by imploring us to buy these two books. She gushed over them and if I am a sucker for anything, it is an author I love telling me to but someone else's book. So of course, in addition to the two Patchett titles I didn't have, I bought these two.

This was one of the most stimulating book events I have attended. I felt smarter just being in that room with such a gifted writer.

Ann Patchett's Parnassus Books' website is here.
My review of This Is The Story Of A Happy Marriage is here.

Tom Perrotta at Barnes & Noble

I remember reading author Tom Perrotta's novel Little Children in one sitting, totally enthralled by his story of a suburban mom who has an affair with a dad she meets at the playground. It is a stunning work, and was turned into a terrific movie.

Perrotta has written a short story collection, Nine Inches, and he appeared at Barnes & Noble on 86th Street in NYC to read from and discuss the new collection. I read the first story, Backrub, while waiting for the reading. It tells the story of a young, intelligent senior in high school who for some strange reason didn't get into any of the colleges where he applied.

Tom Perrotta

All of his friends have left for college and he is working as a pizza delivery man. His parents want him to volunteer for an organization in Africa, but he just can't bring himself to do it. He gets pulled over by a local cop, an odd man, and his life is going nowhere quickly.

Perrotta read a story, The Test Taker, about a high school senior who is involved in a scheme to take the SAT test for other students for money. Perrotta said that his daughter was at this stage in her life, getting ready to go to college and all that entails, and that informed many of the stories in this book.

During the Q&A, I asked him if he was anxious about this as both of these stories, and few more in the collection, seemed to indicate that. He laughed a little and said that in the town where he lives, he has seen the stress that this time of life has placed on people.

One thing he said that really intrigued me is that this generation of parents (my generation) identifies more with their children than with their parents, and that is something that has changed. I totally agree with him, and wonder if this is why some parents are so unwilling to discipline their children or believe that their children could possibly do anything wrong.

A good writer is an observer and judging from the two stories I read and having gone through this period a few years ago with my two sons, I can say that Perrotta's observations are keen indeed. He just puts you right into his characters' lives, and to be able to do that so well in short story format is a talent he well possesses.


Tom Perrotta's website is here.

The Cast of Closer Than Ever Live at Barnes & Noble

I love the fact that my neighborhood Barnes & Noble has become the home of CD cast recordings releases for Broadway and off-Broadway shows. I have seen so many wonderful performances from shows I have seen (like Pippin and Scandalous) and shows I did not get a chance to see (like Giant and Hands on a Hardbody).

Last week, the cast of the off-Broadway revival of Maltby & Shire's Closer Than Ever came to sing four songs from the show. Show co-creator David Shire spoke to the enthusiastic crowd, and then co-stars Sal Viviano, Christiane Noll and George Dvorsky performed four songs from the show. (Cast member Jenn Colella was unable to attend.)

The first song was Doors, and the harmony of the voices was just lovely.


Next, they treated us to She Loves Me Not.


The gentlemen treated to us Fathers of Fathers.


They closed with the title song, Closer Than Ever.


It must have been a very romantic show because there were several couples there holding hands during the songs. The music sounded like this must have been a very traditional show, one that many enjoyed.

Links to:
Pippin and Scandalous at Barnes & Noble
Giant at Barnes & Noble
Hands on a Hardbody at Barnes & Noble

You can buy the CD here.

The Cast of Hands On A Hardbody at Barnes & Noble

The cast of Broadway's Hands On A Hardbody appeared at Barnes & Noble 86th St. in NYC on September 4, 2013 to perform songs and sign CDs of the cast recording from the show. After hearing the music, I was bummed that I missed this show.

The first song is Burn That Bridge


Next they sang Born in Laredo


Keith Carradine was featured on Used to Be


The last song was a barnburner- Joy of the Lord


After that last song, you could tell that the cast really liked and missed each other. What a shame this show didn't make it.

You can buy the CD here.