Archive for August, 2010

BIG (SALT)WATER MOVIES?

Saturday, August 14th, 2010

The inaugural wearing of the very large, very soft, very warm big wooly sweater with very long sleeves and detached collar proved once again that strange knittings are very much better than no knittings. And as we sat, toasty on the porch with fizzy wine to celebrate the new job and general excellence of our kids, we noted the dramatic cool down with bugs once the sun set and we felt Fall. RB is a summer-only adventure which means that after twenty-five years, I can manage withdrawal pangs, but come January, longing hits and I look for anticipation reads or watches.

A RB reader mentioned that she chose to anticipate the summer visit with Linda Greenlaw’s Lobster Chronicles, a good choice and a sure voice of Maine. But we porch sitters began thinking about ocean/coastal/water films we knew and loved because, readers all, we decided that books are good but pictures are better.

Fig. #92.  How about Friday night movies on the garage door "screen"?  I could enlarge the driveway.  At dusk, the peeled paint pock marks hardly matter.

Fig. #92. How about Friday night movies on the garage door? I could enlarge the driveway. At dusk, the peeled paint pock marks look like aging batik.

But which films? Local Hero and The Russian are Coming, The Russians are Coming were unanimous choices. The Shipping News was mentioned and The French Lieutenant’s Woman got a maybe. Errol Flynn’s pirate movies were too violent for one (Remember Captain Blood?) and Johnny Depp’s pirate movies too camp for another. Someone mention he new version of the Hornblower movies which drew a scoff from a Gregory Peck fan. No one had seen Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander. Whales of August and Weight of Water were possibles. Only one person had seen the new movie, Ghostwriter, but I can’t remember the comment which suggests the reviewer must have been asleep over the Atlantic when he saw it. Worth checking out, though. The second season of  The Wire is called “The Port” I think, but so far no one had seen more than one episode. Is Baltimore’s port enough water? Jane Austen’s Persuasion should have come up and didn’t. Suggestions welcome.

People of Maine who don’t die at sea or from a communicable disease live nearly forever. I base this finding on a cursory look at tombstones in the cemetery at the head of the Harbor. I think the secret is blueberries. They are so good, so at-hand, and so filled with antioxidants which are good for the heart, how could the finding be different? Seafood is good, too, and available, but not as free for the growing or picking on trails. Is molasses unrefined enough for the resulting doughnuts to be natural or organic? Time for lunch.

You’d better hurry. Labor Day is too close to dawdle.

HIGH SUMMER NEWS

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

It’s high summer in Tenants Harbor. Dinghies are tooling about, bicyclers are lined up at the Happy Clam’s ice cream  window, and RB has been declared an event and a destination, even though our wine on the porch was for their EYES only. Tom Gjelten’s Bacardi is the second bestseller of the summer (3 copies sold), Woody Holton’s Abigail Adams practically flew off the shelf and a shrewd reader spotted Anna Pavord’s Tulip: The Story of the Flower that has Made Men Mad with it’s possible likenesses to our recent Wall Street fiasco.

Where are you all? People who only knew about RB from the blog stopped by, so having never been here is no excuse. And, based on conversations from last summer, I’m figuring out what themes I have five books about so you can stop in before you pick up the key to your cottage, choose themed treasures, then read yourself through a most memorable  vacation ever.  How about, for example, the Amazon and Mexico (I need Arturo Perez Reverte’s Queen of the South to make the five) or Henry Knox with a side trip to Montpelier or WW II fiction or murder mysteries around the world (I even have one set in North Korea) or, or, or. The fun is figuring out what (at least) five books will make you relish even more your time here and stop by for a withdrawal read for the flight home. (“Thin, light-weight paper,” they requested, and chose Dava Sobel’s Longitude and Roy Hoxham’s Great Hedge of India.)

Figure #90.  Remember?

Figure #90. Remember?

But there was a Fall nip in the early morning air last Saturday, and though it made the coffee and just-picked blueberries taste even better, it seemed early. I don’t know if a neighbor’s warning that “the Caribbeans are coming” referred to a type of boat, their home moorings, or something else entirely, but I do know that a whole batch of boat folks stopped by RB even before they saw the sign on the tree because they were moored afront the TH Boat Yard which is near but hidden behind the trees across the road and RB was the first stoppable place on their way down Sea Street. Here’s to many more Boat Yard barbecues.

I loved Harry Dolan’s Bad Things Happen and am 200 pages into my coveted (British paperback) copy of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. The poplar is whispering. Times are good.

Fig. #91.  "Or is this what you remember?

Fig. #91. "Or is this what you remember?