A Gifted Grandmother's Fan Quilt

Some years ago a friend gave me his mother's quilts which had been used in the family cabin for years. The matching twin size quilts included fabrics that he recalled seeing in his mother's dresses.

The tops date to the late Depression Era, but were finished in the 1970s with a pre-quilted fabric in a preprinted calico flower appliqué pattern. The tops were machine quited along the blocks to the pre-quilted fabric. The pattern is a Grandmother's fan variation. Each fan has a red center with scrappy blades.  The center of the quilts show fading.

 

  

 There are cute figurative prints.

 

 There are lots of polka dots and plaids!

The Immortal Sherlock Holmes

In junior high I eagerly anticipated the arrival of the Scholastic Book order, especially when I had ordered novels upon which my favorite Classics Illustrated Comics were based. This is how I first came to read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, Ivanhoe by Walter Scott, and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. It is how I first came across The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy.

One Scholastic Book I read over and over was The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle. I loved it. Whenever the Basil Rathbone movie version was broadcast on television I watched it. (Watch it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLETzw6c1XA ) That 'cheerful little spot," the misty moor with Stonehenge-like ruins, the mysterious killer dog, thrilled the girl me.

I grew up watching Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents and I had Alfred Hitchcock's 1962 Ghostly Gallery. I had discovered Edgar Allen Poe in my grandfather's library. (And wrote about it here.) I loved a tattered volume of ghost stories found somewhere. Especially The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall, which can be read here. 

Eerie and weird and mysterious were my favorite things.

I read other Holmes stories over the years. And later I watched the PBS television Sherlock Homes series on Mystery!, read The Seven Percent Solution  by Nicholas Meyer and saw the movie, and even saw Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother; I had married a Holmes fan.

But what did I really know about Holmes? Why does he persist until today inspiring novels, television shows, and movies based on his character?

I thought I'd find out by reading the new book by Zach Dundas,
The Great Detective:The Amazing Rise and Immortal Life of Sherlock Holmes 

Enthusiasm abounds in this volume. It is never stuffy and maintains a light voice. Dundas' writing is informal and rather like a roller coaster ride with all the information he packs into a chapter. He summarizes the Holmes stories, informs the reader of relevant background information, throws in personal background stories on Doyle, and talks about his personal investigation on London locals which inspired Holmes' London. We learn about Doyle's teacher who inspired the Holmesian scientific methods. We find out about Doyle's private life and his love/hate relationship with his creation.

Those of us who have not read the stories in decades will appreciate the summaries of the stories. I had planned on reading the stories along with this book. I read The Study in Scarlet. But decided not to continue reading the stories side-by-side with Dundas. His synopsis is so thorough there was no need.

Dundas considers the current media versions of Holmes including Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock, which will delight fans, and looks at the fan fiction imagining various pairings of Holmesian characters. He addresses how Doyle allowed adaptations and use of his characters during his life time. He became quite tired of Holmes and 'killed him off'. Some years later he caved in and wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles, a story quite unlike the previous ones.

In his conclusion Dundas offers reasons for the durability and continual relevance of the Holmes mythos.

The book will delight Holmes fans.

I thank the publisher and NetGalley for a free ebook in exchange for an unbiased review.

The Great Detective: The Amazing Rise and Immortal Life of Sherlock Holmes
by Zach Dundas
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date June 2, 2015
ISBN: 9780544214040
$26 hard cover

A Year With The Fairies: June

June's Visit

My Beetles in trappings of green brushed with gold

Bring with joy all the treasures my carriage can hold.

And thousands of flowers for the children I strew,

With plenty for brides and sweet graduates too.

Attended with strains from Sir Cricket's wee band

I scatter my posies with prodigal hand;

I regret that my sojourn on earth must end soon,

But each year you may look for a visit from June.

from A Year With the Fairies by Anna M. Scott, 1914

South Meets North in Hell's Kitchen

Hell's Kitchen is home to Donna Bell's Bake Shop with its Southern style baking. For Mother's Day I received the new cook book Donna Bell's Bake Shop: Recipes and Stories of Family, Friends and Food.  The recipes, each with a photo, will bring on a bad case of sugar craving and an itching to get into the kitchen. (Or a sudden desire to visit New York City.)

The bake shop was started and is owned by friends Pauley Perrette, Darren Greenblatt, and Matthew Sandusky. The store name honors Pauley's mother Donna. "Cooking and baking down South were a part of every day and every experience," Pauley writes.

Essays by the three friends are interspersed between the recipes. We learn about Pauley's family, her career, and the friends she made along the way.

Darren Greenblatt grew up in Philadelphia and was designing jewelry when he meet Pauley in New York City. "I felt like I had found my long lost sister," he writes. Meeting Donna he helped her in her kitchen and became obsessed with Southern cooking. Matthew Sandusky came from Pittsburgh and meet Pauley in LA where she was breaking into acting. Each of the friends sacrificed something to make the bake shop become a reality. It is a labor of love.

Pauley Perrette is one of the most recognized and beloved media figures in America. She plays Abby Sciuto in the television show NCIS. I first watched NCIS when my dad was in the hospital during his last months and I was staying across state to be with Dad. At the end of the day my brother and I would go back to Dad's house and chill out watching NCIS reruns. After dad's passing I returned home and introduced my husband to the show.

Recipes include biscuits, muffins and scones, quick breads, bread pudding, bar cookies, cookies and cakes. Some that I can't wait to try include:

• Hummingbird Bread Pudding with Cream Cheese Glaze made with crushed pineapple and coconut
• Champagne Cake with Strawberry Buttercream Frosting, yes it uses champagne
• Cranberry White Chocolate Rise Krispies Treats; this is not your kiddie's cookie
• Strawberry Scones with Lemon Glaze, yum!

The book from Simon and Schuster can be found in hard cover at your local bookstore or online shop. 

Anne Eliot VS the Modern Perky Heroine

Last night I attended a book club I have joined. This month's book was Jane Austen's Persuasion.  The book was chosen because some of the members thought they should read an Austen book and because was a shorter novel.

It was a diverse group. Several members were great Janites, while other had never read Austen before. The format for discussion consisted to each member rating the book and explaining why they did or did not like it, bringing up aspects that appealed to them or that gave them problems.

I was surprised by how many enjoyed the 'historical' aspect of the book illustrative of a specific time period. I had never thought about Austen as 'historical fiction'. Quite a number were impressed by Austen's writing quality, the perfection of her language and word choices. Several thought the story line could be easily updated: a girl's parents don't approve of her boyfriend and separate them; they meet later each thinking the other is already engaged; everything is cleared up and they get back together. And quite a number couldn't cope with the exposition, the arcane manners and social observances, the number of characters and how to tell them apart.

A comment that came up over and over was that they wished Anne Elliot showed more pluck. Why didn't she stand up for herself? Why was she so passive? They wanted  Anne Elliot to be more like Austen's Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice, or even Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.

On the drive home I thought about how few plucky heroines were around when I was a girl and how today they predominate books and screen. My husband was re-watching The Hunger Games yesterday. Today we want a Katniss. a gal who steps up to the plate and uses her head and stays in for the win. Is Anne Elliot, or Fanny from Mansfield Park, too passive, too archaic, to appeal to the post-modern world changed forever by feminism?

I think that Anne won back her former lover's attention by being what she always was, demonstrating her good sense and willingness to help others--even when they are not deserving. She has a moral integrity that does not require acting out or getting even; she never feels superior; she accepts the foibles of other. She is well spoken, socially intelligent, sensible, and consistent. Captain Wentworth finds Anne unchanged.

+++

"Her attachment and regrets had, for a long time, clouded every enjoyment of youth, and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lasting effect."

Anne is as low as a gal can get. Anne was nineteen when her surrogate mother Lady Russell persuaded to break her engagement to a man she was attached to, but whose future was uncertain. Unable to forget the man she gave up, she has become thin and listless and resigned to spinsterhood.

"She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning."

Anne is insignificant in the eyes of her father and elder sister Elizabeth. After their mother's death Elizabeth took over the role of female family head, but has none of their mother's good sense. She like their father is shallow, vain, and full of the 'Elliot Pride' of self-importance. Anne is taken advantage of by her hypochondriac married sister who relies on Anne's good sense to solve all her problems.

"How was Anne to set all these matters to rights? She could do little more than listen patiently, soften every grievance, and excuse each to the other; give them all hints of the forbearance necessary between such near neighbours, and make those hints broadest which were meant for her sister's benefit."

Their father, with Elizabeth complicit, has mismanaged his money. They are in debt. It is decided that they have to rent out the only home Anne has ever known. They are to move to Bath, a resort town of leisure where society's shallow values, based on rank and connections, reign.

Jane understood Anne. When Jane lost her father the family had to vacate the vicarage. They moved to Bath for a while, a place she hated, and where she did little writing. Luckily her brother Edward had been adopted by a childless relative and was able to offer them a little cottage in the country.

As Jane was writing Persuasion she was suffering from the mystery illness that killed her and which left her listless, with back pain, fever, and destroyed her looks, leaving her 'black and white'. Persuasion was the last book she wrote.

Dr. Toby Olshin taught us that Persuasion was 'wish fulfillment.' It has a fairy tale ending. Anne gets her second chance. (Which Jane would never live to get.)

The war is over. Captain Wentworth returns holding all the aces; on top of looks, wit, and self-confidence he now has wealth--and is looking for a wife. He tells thrilling tales of life at sea. The Musgrove girls throw themselves at him. He is vain enough, and angry still about Anne's backing out of their youthful engagement, to lord it over Anne.

"He had not forgiven Anne Elliot. She had used him ill, deserted and disappointed him; and worse, she had shewn a feebleness of character in doing so, which his own decided, confident temper could not endure. She had given him up to oblige others. It had been the effect of over-persuasion. It had been weakness and timidity. He had been most warmly attached to her, and had never seen a women since whom he thought her equal; but, except from some natural sensation of curiosity, he had no desire of meeting her again. Her power with him was gone forever. It was now his object to marry."

Captain Wentworth is enjoying being the center of all this female attention. Until he realizes that these silly young girls lack the maturity and constancy and good sense Anne still shows.Louisa Musgrove proves that being too head strong, and not persuadable to a better judgment, has disastrous consequences.

Anne's looks have improved since the Captain's return. The fresh Lyme air restores her color. Being near her love makes her eyes sparkle. And she is suddenly noticed by other men again--in particular her cousin Mr. Elliot, heir to her father's estate. And Anne knows she is admired, and it adds to her restored beauty.

The Captain has understood that Anne is engaged Mr. Elliot, who is interested in her for all the wrong reasons--none of which include love and esteem. Luckily Anne has taken up a girlhood friend whose fallen on hard times, but who has connections into the Bath rumor network. If you have ever lived in a small town you will recognize how it works. Knowledge is power. Anne learns the truth about Mr. Elliot.

The Captain overhears Anne in a conversation about constancy in love and learns that Anne's heart is true. He slips a letter for Anne to find. Oh my, what passion!

Captain Wentworth leaves a letter for Anne, proclaiming his love

"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you."

+++

So what kind of Anne Elliot do women want today? Had Anne stuck to her guns and married Captain Wentworth against her family's advice what would her life had been like?

She would have been alone with her husband away at sea during the Napoleonic wars, capturing prize ships and getting rich. Perhaps she would have become pregnant, raising children alone. She could have died in childbirth. Her husband could have died at sea. These scenarios are partly what caused Lady Russell to persuade Anne to break off the engagement. Dread of a new war carrying off her husband is the only pale on the happiness Anne finds at the end of the novel. Austen had two brothers in the British Navy. She was well acquainted with the fears and concerns of having a man at sea.

What if Anne had married her cousin Mr. Elliot, heir to the estate, as her family had hoped many years ago. She would have been exceedingly unhappy with an unworthy husband who did not love her.

What if Anne stayed single and fought for living on a budget, paying off their debts, and retaining the family estate? What if she said, I'm going to do the dancing and not just play the piano? And told her sister Mary to stop whining, she was as healthy as any of them? Would this Anne have won back her true love? She would no longer be the Anne that Captain Wentworth had fallen in love with--amiable and sweet natured.

What she has to offer the Captain are stellar qualities. She offers no real money. No estate. She is not a raving beauty, a clever conversationalist, a wit. She is not sexy. He loves her for the very qualities that make her unappealing to today's reader.

I very much appreciate the modern perky heroine, so lacking when I was a girl. There were precious few female writers or heroines around back then. and truthfully they are still a minority today.

But let's not diminish the other qualities that can make a heroine. Moral sense, compassion, wisdom, tenderness, and constancy are needed as much today as ever. Perhaps they are needed now more than ever.

Persuasion can be read free:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/105
http://www.mollands.net/etexts/persuasion/index.html

Restoration Love Story: Exit the Actress by Priya Parmar

Nell Gwynn

When I was reading Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar I noted that many marked it as 'want to read' because they enjoyed Parmar's previous book Exit the Actress about the Restoration actress Nell Gwynn.

I had read about Nell in Samuel Pepys' Diary. At university I kept hearing about this Samuel Pepys dude. I bought an 1890s three volume set of Pepys Diary edited by Henry S. Wheatly and read it; later my husband gifted me the complete diary published by University of California.

"And so to bed." (how Samuel Pepys ends his diary entries)

I went to bed with Pepys for years. And it was my husband's idea.

Pepys loved the theater (read excerpts of his diary about his theater going here.) Under Oliver Cromwell's government the theaters had been closed. With the restoration of the monarchy, and Charles II on the throne, the country made up for all those years of enforced Christian perfection. Bawdy and sexy and profligate things were happening. (Starting at the top with Charles, The Merry King himself!)

Men had traditionally played female roles. One famous actor, Edward Kynaston, or Teddy in Parmar's book, was complimented by Pepys as being 'the loveliest lady that ever I saw in my life." Now females were pushing their way into the theater. Of course they were all prostitutes. Why, Nell Gwynn danced on stage and SHOWED HER LEGS. Scandalous!

"Creed and I walked out to see what play was acted to-day and we find it "The Slighted Mayde"...we saw it well acted, though the play hath little good about it, being most pleased to see the little girl dance in boy's apparel, she having very fine legs, only bends in the hams, a I perceive all women do."
Samuel Pepys Diary, Monday, February 23, 1663

On March 2, 1667 Pepys and his wife went to see the Mayden Queen by Dryden. Pepys wrote, "there is a comical part done by Nell, which is Florimell, that I never can hope ever to see the like done again, by man or woman...so great performance of a comical part was never, I believe, in the world before as Nell do this, both as a mad girle, then most and best of all when she comes in like a young gallant,; and hath the notions and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have. It makes me, I confess, admire her."

Charles in 1653 when in exile

Nell Gwynn was famous for being rising from an orange seller in the theater to becoming one of its stars. Nell was also admired by theater lover Charles II and she later became his mistress. Catching the eye of Charles II was not the hard part. He had seven mistresses and they bore his only living children. Nell remained a favorite and on his death bed he remembered her and hoped they didn't let "poor Nell starve."

Charles II. The model for Captain Hook.

Parmar's version of Nell's rags to riches story is full of ambiance and details about the 17th c.

The book is written in the form of diary entries by Nell, interspersed with letters, recipes, and gossip columns. The reader 'hears' Nell's voice first person. (It was during this time period that personal 'closets' allowing privacy became fashionable--leading to diary writing.) Letters between Charles II and his sister offer readers some insight into the royal world. Readers will enjoy the camaraderie of the theater denizens and their lively antics. 

I had so much fun with Nell and The Wits. They are better company than Vanessa and Virginia could ever be. I suddenly want to revisit Pepys and Fielding and Restoration drama. 

Exit the Actress
by Priya Parmar
Simon & Schuster
Publication 2011
available in ebook, paperback, and hard cover

And Still We Rise: Race, Culture, and Visual Conversations

"As an artist, I strongly believe art has the capacity to touch the spirit, engage, educate, and heal in ways that words alone cannot." Carolyn L. Mazloomi

The origin and use of quilts has always been about warmth and protection. Quilts have also always been about art and expression. Quilts have been created to express political affiliation, to raise funds for causes, and to communicate the ideals and goals of various groups and social causes.
(For an overview see: http://worldquilts.quiltstudy.org/americanstory/engagement/awareness-activism)

And Still We Rise consists of 97 quilts by 69 artists that express the totality of the African American experience. In her opening essay Carolyn Mazloomi explains the genesis of the quilt exhibition: using the accessible and visual medium of quilting, artists explore 400 years of history, from 1619 when the first kidnapped and enslaved Africans landed on American soil to Trayvon Martin's murder.

Each quilt merits a full page and a detail illustration accompanied by the artist's statement. Unlike many "coffee table quilt books" this is not a book to flip through lightly. The quilts incorporate diverse techniques that merit study. The subject matter and story behind the quilts are thoughtful and passionately presented. The diversity of the subject matter is extraordinary, and very personal to the quilt artist.

The quilts are presented in historical order beginning with 20 and Odd  concerning the 1619 arrival of the first enslaved Africans in America. The Dutch ship The White Lion battled a Spanish ship and captured "20 and odd" enslaved Africans. The White Lion landed at Jamestown, Virginia and traded the Africans for food and supplies.  The quilt by Carolyn Crump shows the ship hull made of African bodies.

The quilt subjects include the expected: Crispus Attucks who died in the Boston Massacre; enslaved first American poetess Phillis Wheatley; Nat Turner rebellion organizer; the Amistad case; Harriet Tubman; and John Brown. Other subjects appear that are not covered in typical American textbooks: Griot Lucy Terry Prince; Levi Coffin who established the Underground Railroad; political activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper; political activist Ida B. Wells; the first black U.S. Naval ship captain Robert Smalls; Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks; and the first African-American Brigadier General in the U.S. Army Benjamin O. Davis Sr. Iconic African American achievements in music, athletics, and the arts appear.

The artists address the dark side of the African American experience. Ironic by Sandra Hankins portrays the three men murdered in Mississippi in 1964 whose story was central to One Mississippi, Two Mississippi  by Carol V. R. George which I reviewed at the beginning of the month. The Scottsboro Boys: The Arrest by Patricia Montgomery commemorates the nine Negro young men who were wrongfully arrested and condemned to death. Other quilts present The Freedom Riders, Martin Luther King, the bombing of the Birmingham 16th Street Baptist Church, and the signing of the 1968 Civil Rights Act.

There are quilts to celebrate achievements and firsts: the first all African-American flight crew; the election of President Barack Obama; the appointment of Condolezza Rice; Brigadier General Hazel Q. Johnson-Brown; and astronaut Mae C. Jemison.

Reading the book, confronted by the quilts, brings a roller coaster ride of emotions. One is educated, one remembers, one mourns, and one hopes. Arriving at the 2012 Trayvon Could be My Son by Dorothy Burge brings a heavy awareness of current turmoil and the inequalities of our society and justice system.

The last quilt Visionaries of Our Freedom: Quadricentnnial: The First Four Hundred Years of African Presence in America by Sherry E. Whetstone-McCall is a crazy quilt collage in the shape of the continent of Africa. The artist states, "Let that anniversary be marked by the telling of stories that recognize and celebrate the perseverance and triumph of the African-American people. Let the stories inspire the world to take courageous steps for freedom today and for generations to come."

I received a free book from Schiffer in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

And Still We Rise: Race, Culture, and Visual Conversations
Carolyn L. Mazloomi
Schiffer Publishing
$34.99 hard cover
ISBN: 9870764349287