Friday 5ive- February 24, 2024

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish featuring five things that caught my attention this week.

1) I attended a luncheon at the beautiful Sarasota Club featuring a discussion with the popular The Thursday Authors talking books and the friendship they formed over Zoom during the pandemic. Fiona Davis, Lynda Cohen Loigman, Amy Poeppel and Susie Orman Schnall were led in discussion by Lea DeCesare. They talked about their current books, how they got their starts (all were not published until the age of 40+), the importance of sitting your butts in the seat and just writing, their favorite writing spots,  (Lynda writes at her kitchen table- how does she do that?) and so much more. The talk was interesting, inspiring and lots of fun. Many thanks to the Kappa Kappa Gamma alumnae of Sarasota/Manatee who put this terrific program together. (And Amy Poeppel is one of my go-to authors. I've read and loved all her books.)

Amy Poeppel and Susie Orman Schnall signed copies of their books

2) I had the most delicious appetizer at Café L'Europe in St. Armands Circle in Sarasota. It was deviled eggs topped with caviar and it was amazing. I will definitely be back.

3) What is the deal with this car parked on the Upper East Side? I don't know what it is trying to say. Any guesses? 

4) I saw the play "Doubt- A Parable" starring Liev Schreiber and Amy Ryan. I bought my tickets months ago when Tyne Daly was scheduled to play Sister Aloysius and I was so excited to see her back on Broadway as I have seen her in other shows and she is amazing. It was announced a few weeks ago that Tyne had to bow out for medical reasons and Amy Ryan was tapped to take over with just a few rehearsals. Amy's role is the biggest one in the show (Meryl Streep played the role in the movie). Amy Ryan was phenomenal, she hit it out of the park and should definitely get a Tony nomination for her performance. The show is set in the early 1960s at a Catholic school. Sister Alyosius suspects that a priest has been inappropriate with a young male student and she looks to a young nun, played so wonderfully by Zoe Kazan, to confirm her suspicions. Liev Schreiber plays the priest and this revival of John Patrick Shanley's 2004 play about doubt and convictions is timely and thought-provoking. Go see it if you can. 

5) The New York Times ran a piece featuring Oscar-nominated actors in their "Secret Places". Paul Giamatti, nominated for Best Actor for his role in The Holdovers, which he is brilliant in, chose to be photographed in a used bookstore.  As someone who runs a used bookstore in NYC (Paul lives in Brooklyn), I'd like to invite him to come see the Book Cellar. Here is the piece from the NY Times website:

Have a great week all, stay safe and healthy. Until next time.

Friday 5ive- January 19, 2024

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. One of my 2024 resolutions is to be better about posting this weekly. 

1)  I thought I had missed my chance to see the Rockefeller Center tree this year, but I managed to get there on January 11th, two days before it came down. This year's tree was particularly beautiful, so full and bright, and there were no crowds of people on the night I was there.

2)  The reason I got to see the tree was because I was on my way to see Broadway's Days of Wine and Roses. They turned the 1962 classic movie starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick into a musical starring two of Broadway's best performers- Brian d'Arcy James and Kelli O'Hara. It tells the story of a public relations executive in the late 1950s who meets and falls in love with a secretary. Joe often has to wine and dine people in his business, and he shares his love of alcohol with the teetotaler Kirsten. Kirsten begins to enjoy alcohol as much as Joe, and that love of alcohol causes problems for both of them. Even the birth of their daughter can't stop them from drinking. It's an emotional, powerful, and sad story. James and O'Hara are in fine form, their musical voices dominate this moving show. It's not a feel-good story, and I was suprised that they turned this into a musical rather than a dramatic play. It's a limited run show, 16 weeks only so if you are in NYC soon I recommend this show for the outstanding performances.

3) We found a fantastic little Italian restaurant in our neighborhood called Donna Margherita. I pass by it frequently on my journeys, and from the outside it looks rather nondescript. Then I looked up reviews for them and they were glowing. Everyone praised their authenticity, the delicious food and the attentive staff. We visited on a recent night with three other people and we were wowed by the food. Most of us had the Sunday Sauce pasta with short ribs that had simmered for seven hours. It was fabulous. The place is small inside, but very cozy and they have an outdoor seating area when it warms up. It will be on regular rotation and if you come to visit us, we'll probably take you there.

4)  If you watched any of the film awards ceremonies in the past few weeks, you have seen Paul Giamatti winning Best Actor for his pitch-perfect performance as a lonely, irascible, tough, unliked by everyone boarding school ancient history professor in the movie The Holdovers. We watched it on the Peacock streaming service and it was wonderful. Da'Vine Joy Randolph also won for her magnificent performance as Mary, the head of the cafeteria, a Black woman who recently lost her son in the Vietnam War. The movie, set in 1970 over the holiday weekend where everyone has gone home for the holiday but one student, the professor who draws Holdover Duty and Mary. The three end up forming an unlikely bond. It's a rare movie that both my husband and I like, but we really enjoyed this one and recommend it to everyone. If you liked the movie Sideways from back in the early 2000s, director Alexander Payne and Giamatti reunited from that one here.

5) Speaking of the Vietnam War, I have two books with that setting for you this week. The first one is Tim O'Brien's classic war novel The Things We Carried, which is my January edition from my Banned Books gift my daughter-in-law gave me last year. I can't wait to read his powerful novel of men in war.

Kristin Hannah's upcoming novel The Women is also set during the Vietnam War. Frankie McGrath leaves her upper class home in Coronado, California to join her brother who left to fight in Vietnam. She becomes a nurse specifically to go to Vietnam and her eyes are opened to another world, one she couldn't have imagined. Frankie becomes friends with her roommates Ethel and Barb, and the although the three women couldn't be more different, they become lifelong friends. Hannah puts the reader right in Frankie's shoes as she quickly learns how to save the lives of young men blown apart in war. We also see the aftermath of Frankie's service, her return home where people spit on her, call her a baby killer and alternately disregard her service by saying "there were no women in Vietnam." I loved the TV show China Beach, and The Women mines that same territory as well as the TV show. I found one small plot point at the end a little disappointing, but The Women overall continues Hannah's streak of writing deeply moving historical fiction (The Nightingale, The Great Alone, The Four Winds).  I highly recommend it.

Welcome to 2024 where winter has finally come to NYC. Stay safe and warm everyone, until next time.