By Laura Nawrot, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main
While there were some chapters I could relate to more than others, overall I found this collection of short essays to be quite funny and very enjoyable. I especially liked the chapter entitled, I Hate My Purse. Nora could have been describing my purse and me and we haven’t even met! Yes, I hate my purse, too, because I can never find anything in it either. Even things I know for a fact I just used, like my chap stick. I returned it to the small zippered compartment in the front of my purse, but somehow it got sucked into a black hole in the universe somewhere between my house and my job. Fortunately, I now feel assured that I’m not alone in this experience, thanks to Nora.
I think what appealed to me the most about this book is Nora’s courage in pointing out the obvious quirks in everyday life that we tend to overlook. Aside from observations about the state of her purse and those of her friends, Nora covers other topics equally as well with humor and honesty.She’s not afraid to point out the effects of gravity on certain body parts and at the precise age to expect those changes to occur. In addition, she offers insight on hair, skin, nails, and exercise, (or the dangers of), in her chapter on maintenance.
Although this book was written specifically for women, I think men would appreciate Nora’s humor and insight as well, or at least maybe gain some understanding of the inner workings of the female mind.
The Decemberists’ June 4 visit to the Meijer Gardens concert series will likely be on the of “hot” concerts this season. (Supplied photo by Holly Andres)
The first of the 31 planned concerts of the 2018 Fifth Third Bank Summer Concerts at Meijer Gardens begins this week with a sold-out show by the Tedeschi Trucks Band on Tuesday, May 30, with pushing 20 of the remaining 30 shows also sold out and many of the rest with very few tickets available from the original source.
While many of the “tickets available” shows are down to under 100 of the 1,900 general admission seats of the grass, the logic of which concerts are sold out and which are still up for grabs is a little bit of a puzzler, as several of the season’s best offerings still had tickets available as of the Memorial Day weekend.
One such “How can that not be sold out?” show is the Monday, June 4, visit of The Decemberists — a concert by a band clearly on the alt-rock “hot in 2018” list. (If there are any original source tickets — not from the secondary market, at increased prices — available from Meijer Gardens (at original price), check here.)
The Portland, Oregon based band — on their just released “I’ll Be Your Girl” album/CD/download, and their just begun “Your Girl/Your Ghost” world tour — are a well-established alternative rock band exploring a new sound, as evidenced by the first single off their new release, the synthesizer driven “Severed”.
“When you’ve been a band for 17 years, inevitably there are habits you fall into,” The Decemberists front man Colin Meloy said in supplied material. “So our ambition this time was really just to get out of our comfort zone. That’s what prompted working with a different producer and using a different studio. We wanted to free ourselves from old patterns and give ourselves permission to try something different.”
And when he says a “different producer,” he is referring to John Congleton, who has produced “different” musicians such as St. Vincent and Lana del Rey, and helps the band embrace “different” influences such as Roxy Music and New Order, according to the band.
The Decemberists — songwriter, lead vocalist and guitarist Meloy, guitarist Chris Funk, keyboardist Jenny Conlee, bassist Nate Query, and drummer John Moen — made a conscious effort to “broaden their sonic range” as a follow-up to 2015’s “What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World”, which included the hit single “Make You Better”, and a history highlighted by almost folk-pop songs such as “Down By the Water” and “The Calamity Song”, both from 2011.
“On the last record,” Meloy said, “there were moments when I thought I was making familiar choices. I tried to be mindful in the songwriting process of challenging myself and being a little more critical. The idea was, how can we make unfamiliar choices, turn off the light a little and grope around in the dark a bit?
“We were talking about music and our references (and) … it kept coming back to Roxy Music and early glam, and we dove in with that in mind … we were trying to embrace that Bryan Ferry aspect, that kind of set the tone.”
Continuing on the new direction of “I’ll Be Your Girl”, and praising the input of fellow band members Funk and Conlee, Meloy said the single “Severed” was an example of a significant team effort.
“That was written as a punk song, but wasn’t really working,” he said. “Jenny set this arpeggio throughout it, and it became like an early New Order song. And I had forgotten that when we made the demo, I also started a file to turn it into more of a Depeche Mode song—I actually wanted it to be a synth song all along.”
Summing up the desire of a veteran band finding new inspiration, challenging itself to re-connect with its creativity, Meloy said: “Making music is an infinite choose-your-own-adventure, and when you go down one path, the other paths get sealed off. So every time we could, we said, ‘If this is what our impulses would tell us to do, let’s try to imagine it in a different way.’”
Can’t wait to hear the Decemberists’ new and different way.
Other concerts (maybe) not yet sold-out
A probably sold-out crowd that comes to Meijer Gardens Summer Concert series. (Supplied Meijer Gardens/Tony Norkus)
Talking about concerts which may still tickets remaining available, the list includes one this weekend — Gladys Knight on Sunday, June 3 — and later nights with Jackson Browne, Air Supply and Patti LaBelle, as well as Alabama performing for a special fundraising show to benefit the Garden’s “Welcoming the World: Honoring a Legacy of Love” capital campaign.
Most surprising, to me anyway, are that there are still tickets available for several more “hot” shows that I am looking forward to: the modern alt-pop darlings Fitz and the Tantrums, the late 1970s New Wave/early ‘80s Power Pop sounds of Joe Jackson, the reformed classic late ‘90s alt-rock juggernaut +LIVE+, and the always great annual visit of Lyle Lovett (with his Large Band).
For more information on Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, the concerts and all the details on what to bring and not bring to the outdoor amphitheater, visit meijergardens.org .
By Michelle Hannink, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main
If you enjoy a family saga and watch the Hallmark Hall of Fame movies, then you might enjoy reading Canadian author Mary Lawson’s second work, The Other Side of the Bridge. Lawson’s ability to draw the reader in is wonderful, allowing them a fine escape into her world.
This is the story of two brothers growing up on a farm during the Depression and onset of war in northern Canada. Arthur and Jake Dunn couldn’t be more different. Arthur is the hardworking, quiet, dull but dependable son who naturally belongs on the farm. Jake is the opposite—very intelligent, better at schoolwork than farm work, seemingly clumsy in all physical labor and unable to please his father. Their relationship reaches a climax one day when crossing the bridge over the river while accompanying a nervous cow—an event which changes their lives forever and lends title to this book. War breaks out and neither son is able to enlist. A new minister and his beautiful daughter Laura come to town and take up residence next to the farmhouse. Arthur is instantly smitten and Jake sets out for revenge.
Lawson tells the story within two time frames—the first during the 1930s and into World War II and the second during the 1950s when teen Ian Christoperson enters their life. Ian is the town doctor’s son. He too has a crush on the now-married Laura and goes to work for her husband Arthur on their farm so that he can be near her. When Jake returns unexpectedly to the farm after a fifteen-year absence, the emotions and apprehensions culminate in a tragic and surprising ending.
By Megan Andres, Grand Rapids Public Library, Seymour Branch
Lucinda and Jessie Ryder have always been close. The only two daughters of a golf tour pro, they find themselves living a life of constant upheaval. They go to new schools, conquer new stepfathers, and raise each other to become beautiful young women. Lucinda, called Luz, finds a release from her frantic life in the form of photography and she shares her new love with her younger sister Jessie. But when Jessie’s life takes a turn after meeting a handsome law student, Luz steps up to be what their mother has not ever been: a parent.
Jessie’s fling ends with her pregnant and alone. She makes the decision to give up her child to her older sister and then flees Texas. Jessie follows her lover/professor around the world to photograph the most beautiful places on earth for sixteen years. Until a doctor’s diagnosis sidelines her hopes of a further career.
She suddenly yearns to return home to see her sister Luz and the daughter they share. Lila has only ever known Jessie as her eccentric aunt who does anything she wants. From the beginning, Jessie’s ways cause tension in her sister’s family.
As Jessie meets and begins to fall in love with Luz’s neighbor, she sees that her two largest secrets could tear her family apart. One secret is not hers alone and traps her sister and brother-in-law in a veil of lies. One man only knows the other secret, her former professor, so that she can live her life on her terms rather than allow Luz to swallow her up.
By Amanda Bridle, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main
An initial glance at the cover of Jennifer Haigh’s novel, The Condition might lead you to believe the book tells the story of Gwen McKotch, a woman diagnosed with Turner’s syndrome. However, the “condition” of the title is so much more than Gwen’s genetic condition. The book instead explores the conditions each member of the McKotch family finds themselves in as they struggle with the complexities of family relationships.
Haigh dives deep into the minds of each character, first setting the scene in 1976 when Gwen is diagnosed and then fast-forwarding us ahead twenty years to the state of each of the three siblings, now adults, and their parents, now divorced. The characters each reflect on the current state of their lives. Through dramatic circumstances they are forced to confront the unsettling realization that their lives, even their very own selves, are not what they wanted or expected. The real story begins as each decides what, if anything, to do about his or her own “condition.”
If you enjoy family dramas and books full of introspection and internal debate, you will appreciate getting to know the McKotch family. My heart ached for each of them as the story unfolded. I wished for each of them to find their own happiness, both as individuals and as a family. Don’t miss your chance to meet and love this family and cheer them on as they discover their own happy ending.
By Cher Darling, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
Since the cost of traveling overseas is a little beyond my reach, I chose to do my traveling by armchair instead and read China A to Z: Everything You Need to Know to Understand Chinese Customs and Culture.
The “A to Z” is literal with the first selection about animals: such as dragons who are said to rule the five elements of earth, water, fire, air, and the heavens. The last selection is about Ziyi Zhang, who “is without a doubt China’s most famous actress in America ever since her star-making performance as the (butt)-kicking princess in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000).”
One engaging theme of the book is information about appropriate behavior that would keep a visitor to the country from making social and cultural mistakes. An important part of this information is how to behave in a way that will ensure your own comfort with food, tours, and lodgings, but will not cause your hosts to “lose face”.
I must mention the martial arts topic, since it is so cool. The Shaolin Temple in China is the most famous of China’s martial arts schools, and a major tourist attraction. The martial arts are known as wu shu in China, and “Far from being seen as a sport or a means of fighting, wu shu is considered an art form, a philosophy, and a means to cultivate unity of the body, the soul, and the universe.”
Though each selection is only a page or two long, dozens of sources for in depth information are listed in the back of the book. So if you are like me and can only afford to travel in the company of a good book, China A to Z tells much about China and its history, the lifestyle of the people, and how to act while enjoying the culture of another country. Even if you have no plans to visit the wonderfully complex land of the dragon, the book gives many insights into the customs and culture of another part of this Global Village we call Earth.
Part Annie Oakley, part hippy farmer, with a bit of Little House on the Prairie stirred in, Bootstrapper: From Broke to Badass on a Northern Michigan Farm is the kind of book that grabs you from the first sentence, if that super cover and awesome title haven’t already. This is a fierce memoir, the sort of story that is common enough to be shared by many, but triumphant enough to be Mardi Jo Link’s alone.
The parts you will love are the boys, Link’s sons who are each unique and full of individual adventure, yet clearly on this particular journey with their mother. You will also love Link’s genuine approach to telling this story, how she admits her own weaknesses and struggles, as well as her achievements. You will love that she refers to her ex-husband as Mr. Wonderful.
In 1920, Frankie Pratt graduates from high school and receives a scrapbook as a gift. Intent on becoming a writer, she attends Vassar College, and finds work in New York and Paris. Told through Frankie’s eyes, the life of a young woman trying to find her place in the world comes to life. The remarkable thing about this book, however, is the way the story is told.
The entire book is formatted as Frankie’s scrapbook. It is filled with ephemera such as post cards, letters, magazine ads and more. The story of her life is told through her scrapbook entries and the style of the 1920s is vivid. The reader wants to be able to touch the items in the scrapbook, to ask Frankie questions, and to see the story from the viewpoint of other characters. But this is Frankie’s story and we see her world only from her perspective through what she shares in her scrapbook.
This is a fun book and a quick read, but you will linger, looking at the beautiful and detailed layout of each page.
By Kristen Corrado, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
So who hasn’t wanted to kill their mother from time to time? In Sebold’s latest novel, the narrator, Helen Knightly, murders her elderly mother in the first sequences of the book. The shocking act against her elderly mother seems both random and unemotional. She seems to feel nothing after committing the act, and her ill-fated attempts to cover up her actions only indicate that they came from a subconscious place within her.
As The Almost Moon unfolds, the story of Helen’s beautiful, yet mentally ill mother becomes clear. Her whole life, Helen and her father cater to her mother’s agoraphobia, the entire neighborhood is hostile to them, and Helen becomes her mother’s only link to the outside world. Both her childhood and adult life are overshadowed by her mother’s metal illness, and every action that Helen takes is based on what her mother would think or feel.
While not as gripping as Sebold’s first novel, The Lovely Bones, The Almost Moon examines how mental illness affects an entire family, how we can allow our past to color our future, and how if we are not ultimately true to ourselves, we end up living our lives for others. Above all else, what one should take away from this book is that if you are going to kill your mother, it might be a good idea to brush up on a few CSI episodes first.
Darlingside is bassist Dave Senft, guitarist and banjo player Don Mitchell, classical violinist and folk mandolinist Auyon Mukharji, and cellist and guitarist Harris Paseltiner. (supplied/Gaelle Beri)
By K.D. Norris
ken@wktv.org
Darlingside, with new music from Extralife, April 18, at Seven Steps Up, Spring Lake, Mi.
There should be a natural progression with new bands, a growth in their music as well as in their collective and individual lives, before they hit their stride, find a distinctive sound that resonates with an often unfathomable public taste.
Darlingside — an alt-folk, harmony-driven quartet currently based in Boston — showed they are very, very close to that harmonic sweet spot as they played to a sell-out room at Spring Lake’s Seven Steps Up listening house earlier this month.
The band is made up of Don Mitchell, Auyon Mukharji, Harris Paseltiner and David Senft — and labeling them as acoustic multi-instrumentalists would be an understatement. Describing their sound can also be challenging, but anybody who has heard Simon and Garfunkel at their harmonic heights, or the Beach Boys early empty-swimming-pool effect, can imagine the harmonies these guys deliver.
With the release of their third full-length recording, Extralife, early this year, the band has now added another layer of sonic scenery to their concert landscape — a kind of spacey, otherworldly sound — and to a catalogue started in 2012 with Pilot Machines and given full voice in 2015 with Birds Say. (The band has also released two EPs, including one from its infancy and now simply titled EP1 in 2010, and Whippoorwill in 2016. Neither are throwaways.)
I have been lucky enough to follow Darlingside since their beginnings, literally their college days at Massachusetts’ Williams College — at a college kid drinking establishment/alumni club known as “The Log”. (Ya, you just can’t make that stuff up.)
My wife and I have seen them, we decided, five times over eight years, the first time probably in 2009, and (before last week) when they opened for Lake Street Dive at Meijer Gardens in 2016.
They have changed over the years, but only in their expanding boundaries of their music as the uniqueness of their nearly percussion-free sound, string-dominated instrumentation, and single-mic two-, three- and four-voice harmonies remains their hallmark.
At their recent stop at Seven Steps Up, and at other recent stops in the band’s current tour, several songs from the Extralife have blended — and yet contrasted — with live mainstays from throughout their career.
Songs such as the almost a cappella “The God of Loss” from Birds Say and the sometimes set-ending “Blow the House Down” from Pilot Machines, are personal favorites and remain so.
But new songs such as “Singularity”, “Extralife”, “Hold Your Head High” and “Best of the Best of Times”, while maybe more dark in theme than some of their early music, fit their style perfectly while still pushing the band’s sound into a more (for lack of a better term) spacey place.
In fact, some of the songs off Extralife would be at home on Hearts of Space, National Public Radio’s ethereal, ambient sound showcase (also available on its own website).
“Extralife” is as otherworldly as its is melancholy. The harmonies of “Singularity” cannot hide the beautiful bleakness of the lyrics: “Someday a shooting star is gonna shoot me down … Burn these high rises back into a ghost town … Of iridium-white clouds … Matted close against the ground … While the sky hangs empty as a frame”.
OK, so the boys are a little more serious then they were back at The Log.
Not that Darlingside has gone all downer and dour with Extralife. On “Best of the Best of Times” the band offers a driving beat and an admission that “We are a long way, a long way from the best of times.”
We can hope so.
For more information about Darlingside, visit darlilngside.com .
For more information about Seven Steps Up, visit sevenstepsup.com .
By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
Just a wonderful read!
The cover of That Went Well shows an exuberant little girl in a fancy pink dress and party hat, giving the camera an all-out smile. And the back flap shows two beautiful, gray-haired ladies hugging. Between the covers Dougan lets us in on how life with a sister whom doctors advised “be institutionalized” has gone.
Their parents became trailblazers in what was then a new world of rights for people with mental disabilities, and when they died, Irene’s sister took up the call. Terrell invites us to laugh, (because what else can one do?), but we learn a lot about making compassionate care taking decisions along the way.
If you liked Riding the Bus with My Sister, by Rachel Simon, you may enjoy this small book by Dougan. I loved both of these books, as examples of important lessons one can learn from others. They’re warm, compassionate, and hilariously funny.
By Kristen Krueger-Corrado, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
You’re a vegetarian journalist living in New York City. You are assigned to write an article about an organic farmer working in Pennsylvania. Within 24 hours of meeting the farmer, you are eating sausage, working the fields, slaughtering a pig and falling in love.
Author Kristin Kimball’s life changed when she interviewed that farmer. As their relationship bloomed, so did her understanding and respect for agriculture. Soon, she gave up her career, cute shoes, and NYC apartment and started an organic farm, Essex Farm, with Mark in upstate New York.
This memoir chronicles the first year of getting the farm off the ground—from buying plow horses to till the fields, hand milking the cows twice a day and developing a sustainable CSA—all while planning a wedding. Kimball brings to life the daily back-breaking work of running a farm, the cycle of life and death, and how community can support and uplift one another.
Her writing is rich and you feel that you are on the farm with her. When I was done with the book, I missed Essex Farm and Kristin and Mark. I wanted to know how their story continued to unfold. This book will make you appreciate what you buy at the farmers market even more.
By Debbie Hoskins, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
Michigan author Lisa Wheeler has cooked up a delightful cumulative story with a song. Ol’ Bear wakes up with a hankerin’ for ugly pie. As he visits his neighbors, they all show him the pies they have made and donate an ingredient. At the end all the neighbors smell the pie and come and eat Ol’Bear’s “scrumptious-truly wondrous-beautiful Ugly Pie!”
The book is illustrated with delightful, colorful paintings created with water color, acrylic, and collage on paper. At the end of the book is an Ugly Pie recipe that you and the grandcubs could make. Perfect for the grandchildren ages 3 through 7.
Lucas Davenport and crew have done it again, and the 23rd book in Sandford’s Prey series is a winner. If you like to read in the police/thriller genre, to paraphrase one reviewer, “some of the books are very good and some are great”. Hey–that’s as good as it gets for that long of a run! They’re well-written and -plotted, with crisp dialogue, and interesting main characters who have just enough humorous side stories going on, to leven the loaf a bit, what with all the grisly murders and all.
I was thinking of how I would enjoy reading it on my vacation, but made the mistake of just taking a peek… The tale of political dirty tricks gone wrong, and a Machiavellian narcissist plotting her rise through the senate, and the question of a double or triple cross, was just too interesting to set aside.
So, if you are looking for a great travel/vacation read, don’t open it before the trip…
The Decemberists’ June 4 visit to the Meijer Gardens concert series will likely be on the list of “hot” concerts this season. (Supplied photo by Holly Andres)
Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, in announcing their 2018 Fifth Third Bank Summer Concerts at Meijer Gardens series of 31 concerts, use words like “eclectic” and “diverse” to describe the spectrum of artists coming to town.
We could not agree more, or come up with better adjectives.
The series includes — to steal a line from another series of annual events held on the grounds of Meijer Gardens, weddings — something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.
Taking them out of the wedding-rhyme order, while there will be some familiar returners coming back to the Gardens, the new school and New Wave acts may be the most impressive group.
Toad the Wet Sprocket and The Verve Pipe (shown) will be at Meijer Gardens Aug. 19. (Supplied)
With the likes of alt-nation favorites the Decemberists, Fitz and Trantrums and Jason Mraz on the bill, those who think compact discs are archaic will have their day, or night. With the likes of Blondie, Joe Jackson, and the Toad the Wet Sprocket teaming with The Verve Pipe, the older-alt crowd will get their 1980s and ‘90s flashbacks.
My anticipated favorite of the new school/New Wave alt grouping will be +LIVE+, the 1990s alt-rock (post punk) powerhouse whose 1994 “Lightning Crashes” is still one of favorite songs ever, and who recently reunited and put out new music.
Lyle Lovett keeps coming back to Meijer Gardens, and we sure do appreciate it; this time with his Large Band on Aug. 27. (Supplied)
The “old school” rock and country acts on the bill include the always worth-the-money annual visit by Lyle Lovett (this time with his Large Band), Jackson Browne’s return (check out a WKTV review of his 2017 show here), Huey Lewis and the News, Styx and TOTO. And can you get any more old school than The Beach Boys?
We’ll skip the “something borrowed” category because, well, it sounded good but I got nothing. The something (sort-of) blues and soul concerts will include Gladys Knight, Seal, Patti LaBelle and — what may be my second most anticipated concert of the season — the blues kings of Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ together.
Under the somewhat undefinable but, also unmissable concerts include Alison Krauss, Herbie Hancock and the summer party provided by Lake Street Dive.
The concert series includes a special show with Alabama, the classic American country and Southern rock band, on Aug. 23 to benefit the Garden’s ongoing “Welcoming the World: Honoring a Legacy of Love” capital campaign. All net proceeds from this show will be contributed to the campaign.
The complete line-up — with date, showtime, and ticket range — includes:
Tedeschi Trucks Band, May 30 at 6:30 p.m., $75 presale, $78 member, $80 public
Gladys Knight, June 3 at 7 p.m., $68 presale, $71 member, $73 public
The Decemberists, June 4 at 7 p.m., $52 presale, $55 member, $57 public
Jackson Browne, June 6 at 7 p.m., $72 presale, $75 member, $77 public
The B-52s, June 8 at 7 p.m., $57 presale, $60 member, $62 public
Fitz and the Tantrums, June 10 at 7 p.m., $47 presale, $50 member, $52 public
Brandi Carlile, June 13 at 6:30 p.m., $56 presale, $59 member, $61 public
Alison Krauss, June 17 at 7 p.m., $84 presale, $87 member, $89 public
Seal, June 20 at 7 p.m., $91 presale, $94 member, $96 public
Old Crow Medicine Show, June 25 at 7 p.m., $45 presale, $48 member, $50 public
Herbie Hancock, June 27 at 7 p.m., $57 presale, $60 member, $62 public
Blondie, June 29 at 7 p.m., $82 presale, $85 member, $87 public
Huey Lewis and the News, July 8 at 7 p.m., $90 presale, $93 member, $95 public
Patti LaBelle, July 13 at 7 p.m., $75 presale, $78 member, $80 public
The Temptations & The Four Tops, July 15 at 6:30 p.m., $58 presale, $61 member, $63 public
Joe Jackson, July 20 at 7 p.m., $45 presale, $48 member, $50 public
Dispatch with special guests Nahko and Medicine for the People, July 23 at 5:45 p.m., $55 presale, $58 member, $60 public
Jason Mraz with special guest Brett Dennen, July 25 at 6:30 p.m., $83 presale, $86 member, $88 public
The Beach Boys, July 26 at 7 p.m., $64 presale, $67 member, $69 public
Air Supply, July 29 at 7 p.m., $50 presale, $53 member, $55 public
Styx, Aug. 1 at 7 p.m., $72 presale, $75 member, $77 public
Vince Gill, Aug. 6 at 7 p.m., $62 presale, $65 member, $67 public
TajMo: The Taj Mahal & Keb’ Mo’ Band, Aug. 12 at 7 p.m., $59 presale, $62 member, $64 public
Toad the Wet Sprocket & The Verve Pipe, Aug. 19 at 6:30 p.m., $44 presale, $47 member, $49 public
Trombone Shorty’s Voodoo Threauxdown featuring Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Galactic, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, New Breed Brass Band and special guests, Aug. 22 at 6 p.m., $75 presale, $78 member, $80 public
Alabama, Aug. 23 at 7 p.m., $150 presale, $153 member, $155 public (the special fundraising show to benefit the Welcoming the World: Honoring a Legacy of Love capital campaign)
TOTO’s 40 Trips Around The Sun Tour, Aug. 24 at 7 p.m., $53 presale, $56 member, $58 public
O.A.R. with special guest Matt Nathanson, Aug. 26 at 6:30 p.m., $75 presale, $78 member, $80 public
Lyle Lovett and his Large Band, Aug. 27 at 7 p.m., $63 presale, $66 member, $68 public
Lake Street Dive, Aug. 30 at 7 p.m., $48 presale, $51 member, $53 public
+LIVE+, Sept. 3 at 7 p.m., $60 presale, $63 member, $65 public
And, in case you were wondering, despite the ongoing renovation and expansion of the Meijer Gardens amphitheater, there will still be the same 1,900 general admission tickets available. The concert venue work is taking place over two years. Work on Phase One will conclude for the 2018 season and then resume to be completed for the 2019 season.
And now for the “getting the tickets” details/fine print:
Members may buy tickets during the members-only presale beginning at 9 a.m., April 28 through midnight, May 11. There is a limit of 8 tickets per show, per transaction. The preferred method to purchase tickets is online, but multiple options are available. For details see the Meijer Gardens websive’sa concert series page.
Sales to the public begin at 9 a.m., May 12. There is a limit of 8 tickets per show, per transaction. Also, see the website for options and details.
For more information on the concerts, and all the details on what to bring and not bring to the amphitheater, visit meijergardens.org .
By Megan Andres, Grand Rapids Public Library, Seymour Branch
In 1717, Prussian emperor Frederick I presented Peter the Great with a remarkable treasure: enough wall-sized panels covered with meticulously carved amber to decorate an entire room. Eventually installed in a palace near St. Petersburg, the Amber Room was stolen by the Nazis during the 1941 siege of Leningrad and hidden in Konigsberg, now Kaliningrad—after which little is known.
Scott-Clark and Levy recorded their investigation into the whereabouts of the Amber Room in an effort to both educate and fascinate the world. By searching through Romanov archives, Soviet files, and secret documents of the East German Police, the authors retrace the history and disappearance of one of the world’s major art pieces. During a time when amber was more valuable than gold, the Amber Room vanished into thin air.
While the first chapters seem heavy with material as the authors set up the history of the Amber Room, once the clues begin to fall into place, Scott-Clark and Levy fascinate readers as they trace the Amber Room all over Europe. They investigate not only rumors of the location of the pieces but also known facts. Interviews and archival documents help to further tell the story of one of the most famous lost artifacts of World War II.
By Ruth Van Stee, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
Nicole Mazzarella’s story, beautifully written and wonderfully told, takes place in the 1960s, when family farms in the Midwest were in crisis and many were lost to expanding cities and suburban development. Dottie, at the center of This Heavy Silence, works and fights to keep her father’s farm, trying to prove to her deceased father, herself, and the community that a woman can be a successful farmer.
Dottie’s work is interrupted by the death of her friend and the arrival of that friend’s eight-year-old daughter, who lives with Dottie for the next ten years. Even with the child present, the farm is Dottie’s main focus and all decisions and dreams she holds for the child are based solely on keeping the farm going. This finely developed main character is often not very likable, and readers will want to shake and yell at her, but once in a while, when Dottie makes a small, warm gesture or when her pain rises to the surface, readers will want to comfort her.
Mazarella teaches creative writing at Wheaton College in Illinois, but while this novel falls within the Christian fiction genre, it is not a “safe” book, nor the kind of story with an improbable happy ending. Instead, with a desperate hope for the girl’s forgiveness, Dottie takes a step towards change and grace abounds.
Darlingside is bassist Dave Senft, guitarist and banjo player Don Mitchell, classical violinist and folk mandolinist Auyon Mukharji, and cellist and guitarist Harris Paseltiner. (supplied/Gaelle Beri)
Anybody who saw the Massachusetts-based alt-folk quartet Darlingside at Meijer Gardens’ summer concert series in 2016 (which I did), knows their return to Western Michigan later this month is maybe the spring’s first must-see concert.
Those who didn’t catch them before would be wise to check them out and get in on the emerging musical buzz.
At Meijer Gardens, Darlingside was the opening act, but their eight-song, 45-minute set had everybody rushing back from the concession/libation stations to witness an a cappella opening of “The God of Loss” from the band’s 2015 release Birds Say and the quartet had everybody’s attention well before their set-ending statement “Blow the House Down”, from 2012’s Pilot Machines, the band’s debut recording.
There is bound to be more surprises Wednesday, April 18, when the band plays at Seven Steps Up, in Spring Lake, in support of their latest release: “Extralife”.
Darlingside’s sound, that night at Meijer Gardens, featured single microphone vocal harmonies, sparse percussion sounds sans a drummer, but acoustically superb use of string instruments including but not limited to guitar and banjo. Bassist Dave Senft, guitarist and banjo player Don Mitchell, classical violinist and folk mandolinist Auyon Mukharji, and cellist and guitarist Harris Paseltiner created a sound that reminds one (at least me) of the Avett Brothers or Mumford and Sons, but really sounds like nothing you’ve heard before.
According to supplied information, “Extralife” finds Darlingside “looking to the future, mourning the loss of our world with a post-apocalyptic view to address topics ranging from societal issues, politics, environmental concerns and religious tensions. While the subject matter may seem bleak, ‘Extralife’ is not without an underlying sense of hope and optimism.”
Like I said, surprises are to be expected. Just ask the band about its new release:
“We put our four heads together and created this collective consciousness about bits and pieces from our past and how we saw the world based upon reminiscences,” Paseltiner said in supplied material.
Mukharji goes on to describe the “Extralife” concept as “… a life beyond where we are now, whether that’s a brand new thing, a rebirth, or just a new version of ourselves as we move forward. … That future being a completely unknown quantity and the present being a new and bizarre place to be living in.”
After a stop in Ann Arbor on Tuesday, April 17, Darlingside will be at Seven Steps Up for a 7:30 p.m. concert (with Henry Jamison opening). Reserved standard seats are $28, and reserved table seats are $38.
Seven Steps Up is located in downtown Spring Lake, in a renovated Masonic Temple circa 1919, at 116 S. Jackson Street. For more information on the venue visit sevenstepsup.com . For more information on the band visit darlingside.com .
By Mary K. Davis, Grand Rapids Public Library, Yankee Clipper Branch
Death as narrator. He doesn’t carry a scythe or wear a black robe. He doesn’t get involved in human lives—except once as he watches a young girl steal her first book. This is the story of that girl, Liesel Meminger.
Liesel is sent to live with a foster family in working class Mulching, Germany in the late 1930’s. It is World War II and Death is very busy. Still, he manages to tell Liesel’s story—her joys, sorrows, interesting cast of friends and family, and of her thievery. This is a beautiful and haunting story about the power of words.
Death does not enjoy his job; he carries children’s souls in his arms, and he doesn’t always welcome those souls seeking him out. Published as a young adult title, The Book Thief is a novel for adults as well, receiving starred reviews in School Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews and critical acclaim on NPR’s All Things Considered. In this soulful book, Death may surprise you.
By Laura Nawrot, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
This story, told from three different perspectives through the voices of Rose, Son, and Sissy, asks as many questions of the reader as it answers. Is Rose running from her destiny, or to it? If you were in Sissy’s shoes, (or Rose’s or Son’s), would you make the same choices? Is there a path that each individual is designed to follow? Do we forge our life’s path through free will alone or by the choices we make? Or is it some combination of both?
Rose, a devout Catholic girl, believes that her two life choices in the mid-sixties are to become a wife or a nun, and that God will provide her with a sign at the appropriate time. It is immediately apparent that Rose believes she misunderstood the sign, for the story opens with Rose driving across the country, alone, three years into a marriage she entered at age nineteen. The narrative quickly unfolds, and the questions rise through Ann Patchett’s wonderful writing. She paints her characters with such depth and compassion that they become a part of the reader, and the reader truly shares their world. Patchett’s portraits and her vivid description work together to make this a book to read more than once.
The Patron Saint of Liars is Ann Patchett’s first novel and was made into a television movie in 1998. She has since written several more novels and most recently a work of non-fiction, Truth & Beauty, about women and friendships that endure beyond a lifetime.
By Melissa Fox, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
In Barolo, Matthew Gavin Frank takes readers on a trip to explore the food and wine of the Barolo Region of Italy. Frank stays in a tent in a friend’s garden and works at a vineyard, picking grapes for vintner Luciano Sandrone.
This book is rich with details of the history and process of wine making, the Piemontese region of Italy, and of the many people the author meets, restaurants he eats at, and friends he makes along the way.
Barolo is both travelogue and memoir, unique to its time and place in Frank’s life, so that only he could share these stories in this way.
By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
How to explain the soothing yet buoyant effect that Barbara Pym’s two best novels have on one? Excellent Women and Some Tame Gazelle are both wonderfully therapeutic reads for people fed up with modern life. And also for those who just love relationship novels laced with dry humor. I re-read Excellent Women every ten years or so since it is so enjoyable, and I was delighted to see that cutting-edge literary critics have decided that Barbara Pym is once again making a comeback. She’s made a couple of comebacks since her books were published in the ’50s, as new generations discover her subtle charm.
Set in post World War II England, Excellent Women lets us share in the joys and disappointments of one Mildred Lathbury, who leads a mild-mannered life, as one of those “excellent women” who is always helping out in the parish. There are many uncomfortable life situations that Mildred is drawn into that she believes exceed her experience of men and relationships, but she carries on admirably, much to her surprise.
From the gently mysterious beginning to the satisfyingly concluded ending Excellent Women is a wonderful throw-back of a story.
By Kristen Krueger-Corrado, Grand Rapids Public Library
In 1920, Frankie Pratt graduates from high school and receives a scrapbook as a gift. Intent on becoming a writer, she attends Vassar College, and finds work in New York and Paris. Told through Frankie’s eyes, the life of a young woman trying to find her place in the world comes to life. The remarkable thing about this book, however, is the way the story is told.
The entire book is formatted as Frankie’s scrapbook. It is filled with ephemera such as postcards, letters, magazine ads and more. The story of her life is told through her scrapbook entries and the style of the 1920s is vivid. The reader wants to be able to touch the items in the scrapbook, to ask Frankie questions, and to see the story from the viewpoint of other characters. But this is Frankie’s story and we see her world only from her perspective through what she shares in her scrapbook. This is a fun book and a quick read, but you will linger, looking at the beautiful and detailed layout of each page.
By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
At age 82 Felix Weinberg started writing down the history that he had tried to forget for 65 years.
“Anyone who survived the extermination camps must have an untypical story to tell. The typical camp story of the millions ended in death…”
The writing is simple and eloquent, and the story unfolds with a detachment that lends it a somber power, as if he is describing events from a hellish dream world.
Weinberg explains, “In the camps I tried to acquire the ability to look without seeing, listen without hearing and smell without taking in what was around me. I cultivated a kind of self-induced amnesia. I feared that being made to look at hangings, seeing piles of corpses on a daily basis, would somehow contaminate my mind permanently.”
In a reversal of our usual consciousness, he credits his night-time dreams of his beloved childhood in Czechoslovakia, with sustaining him during the bizarre waking hours.
The democratic republic of Czechoslovakia was short lived, and Weinberg’s happy life, along with the whole Czech Jewish community, came to an end with Hitler’s invasion of the Sudeten. His father was able to get out to England, but the rest of the family was detained, and the author’s teenage years from 12 to 17 follow the terrible road from the relocation to local Jewish ghettos, to the camps, and finally to the Nazi’s insane “final solution”.
The cover of the book speaks of depths of emotion that could never be adequately expressed. A beaming little boy, gazes admiringly, lovingly, at his older brother, as they stand together holding hands. Neither his brother nor his mother survived the camps.
“My brother was too young to work. I am convinced that, given the choice, my mother would have gone to the gas chambers with him but I doubt that was an option. I believe she died in some other slave labour camp. All my attempts to trace her, all my searches of archives for further information, have proved futile. It does not do to dwell on these thoughts if one wants to live the semblance of a normal life, but I invite anyone who wishes to share my nightmares to picture that group of children, including my terrified little brother, being herded into the gas chamber.”
Felix’s youth and strength aided him, and a large amount of luck, when so many died at every turn, going from Terezin, to Auschwitz-Birkenau, to Blechhammer, and the final death march to Gross-Rosen. He takes no credit for his survival, and often thanks others for every small kindness. There are many different kinds of holocaust stories, and all are deeply effecting. Felix Weinberg’s tale is one that no one should miss.
By Tim Gleisner, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
Every so often I feel compelled to suggest a book solely not only for the skill of the author’s writing ability, but for it’s social importance as well. The book, A Stronger Kinship by Anna-Lisa Cox, is just such a one.
A true story set in the town of Covert Michigan, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, it tells the tale of the town’s unique population. Covert is a small town of roughly 1,000 people in Van Buren County just outside of South Haven. It is a typical rural community in Southwest Michigan. People settled the area because the land was plentiful and could provide an income. Agriculture, in various forms, has sustained this community from the very beginning — first lumber, then fruit farming. Families went to church, school, formed businesses, all in all a community within the norm of American life. The quality that set this town apart was that the population of Covert was integrated at a time when America was not.
Building on the lives of runaway slaves, freed blacks, and abolitionist New Englanders, the reader encounters a group of people who felt that one was equal regardless of color. This attitude was nurtured while the Midwest was experiencing racism in various forms. Families lived on farms side by side, as well within the town. You learn of the first elected African-American official, of the town’s business leaders who came from both sides of the color line, and from families that were integrated and accepted by the populace as a whole. What is remarkable is that to this day this community has stayed true to the original conviction of the pioneer generation. It conveys the sense that intentional community is not always impossible, and that one’s morals can be lived out in ordinary life.
Anna-Lisa Cox is the recipient of numerous awards for her research. She is an active historian, writer, and lecturer on the history of race relations in the nineteenth-century Midwest.
Deborah Rodriguez is an author who hails from Holland, Mich. originally. Hers is a warm, amusing story of her life’s liberation and journey of self-discovery in Afghanistan after September 11, 2001. This is also a memoir of discovery of the Afghan people and culture, the observation of the many daily hazards in the fallout of war and political upheaval.
I enjoyed her memoir of life events because although she recounts her early life in an abusive marriage and the demeaning, poor and sometimes violent lives of Afghan women, her telling is full of humor and unflinching honesty. The Afghans have a rich and fascinating culture and family tradition. It is interesting to learn such traditions as marriage arrangements and wedding planning. There are still very defined roles for each gender and the clash of modern influences, social change and tradition provide amusing stories to tell. Still, I found incredible and alarming the purposes of parents and potential grooms for the future lives of very young teen girls in marriage.
Ms. Rodriguez goes to Afghanistan to serve with a non-profit humanitarian group in disaster and medical relief. However, Miss Debbie as she came to be known, is not a medical professional but rather a hairdresser. As a hairdresser she has a natural gift for gab and befriending people of all kinds; she easily fits in with Afghans and Westerners alike. In no time at all she is overwhelmed with requests for hair care. Soon she discovers the local salons were shut down by the Taliban, or operating secretly under shortages and lack of cleanliness. Miss Debbie realizes the need for training and support of new hairdressers and salons in Kabul, and her future mission is set. She searches out financial and products support from international manufacturers and sponsors.
Throughout her struggles to start and run the new Kabul Beauty School, Miss Debbie determines to help bring empowerment, self-respect, and self-support to Afghan women, many whom she came to love as friends. You will find as I did the many individual stories — heartbreaking, incredible, or hilarious at times as you discover life behind the burqa veil in Kabul Beauty School.
By Kristen Krueger-Corrado, Grand Rapids Public Library
Eventually, we are all going to die. But what happens to our bodies and our spirits after we pass on? Well, apparently there are a lot more options available than you might have realized. Author Mary Roach explores the subject in her two books, Stiff and Spook.
Roach’s first book, Stiff, examines what happens to our bodies after we die. She looks at the traditional embalming and funeral route, but also looks at the alternatives that a person can choose. For example, if you donate your body to science, you could become an anatomy lesson for a medical school student, or you could be involved in other types of research. In one chapter, Roach looks at cadavers that are used in car crash tests. Researchers have found that by using a real body rather than a crash test dummy, they can more accurately see how a person is injured in an accident. This has led to the development of technology that helps save lives.
Before reading this book, I would have never considered donating my body to science, but after reading about all the cool things your body can do after your spirit has passed on, (Help real-life CSI investigators solve a case! Get a post-mortem facelift!), I’m all for donation.
In her second book Spook, Roach investigates what happens to our souls after we die. She travels to India to talk to a newly reincarnated person; she opens the last existing box of ‘ectoplasm’ used by mediums at the turn of the century; visits a haunted castle in England; and talks to researchers trying to determine the weight of our souls. She attends séances, ghost hunts and even enrolls in medium school.
Roach uses a journalistic eye to explore death. She is never disrespectful of the dead or of a person’s beliefs and she presents various aspects of dying and the afterlife with a dead-on combination of irreverent humor and informative respect. Both books are fascinating reads.
It was a time when men’s gods called them to terror and war. A time when the strong felt it was their destiny to cull the weak, and the prayer offered up across Britain was, “Deliver us, O Lord, from the fury of the Norsemen…”
After the Romans left in 410, the Jutes, Anglos, and Saxons came and settled, and now, four centuries later, a gathering storm is building in the Scandinavian lands that will soon rip apart the weakened and divided kingdoms that make up Britain.
In fact, in the next three centuries, the vikings will spread across Europe, into Russia, and as far as Greenland and Labrador.
Bernard Cornwell, one of our greatest historical adventure writers, directs his gaze to the English theater during these critical ninth and tenth centuries, and how King Alfred’s reign was a pivotal time when Britain was almost swallowed up by the Norsemen.
The history is complex and bloody, filled with alliances, strategies, betrayals, and the battles that raged across the land.
The author brings all his masterful storytelling skills to bear to breath life into the history through his protagonist, Uhtred, who is only 10 years old when we meet him. Second son of the Earl of Bebbanburg in Northumbria, he becomes the first son, and then the heir, when both his brother and father are killed by the raiders in the dragon boats.
Amused by the boy’s rage and courage during the battle, Uhtred is captured by the Danish chief. Although taken as a slave, he is soon treated as a son, and he spends his youth as a Dane. But Uhtred can’t forget the beautiful wild lands of Bebbenburg, and the struggle between his loyalties makes for a great read.
By Jeanessa Fenderson, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
Rarely does a scientific cultural study read the way that The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks does. Rebecca Skloot takes the reader neatly from the piqued curiosity of a sixteen-year-old high school student in biology class into the center of the social wrongs of the medical establishment with remarkable ease. This true story reads like a novel thanks to Skloot’s compassionate and thorough research and storytelling abilities.
In 1951, Henrietta Lacks finally decides to get treatment for the “knot up inside of her” that has plagued her for years. She’s poor and black. So, she goes to Johns Hopkins hospital, one of the only hospitals in Maryland that will treat patients like her. There she learns that the knot that has been bothering her is cervical cancer. A sample of those cancer cells is placed in a petri dish and Henrietta is treated for her disease. While Henrietta’s life comes to an end, the life of her cancer cells has just begun.
This is the story of HeLa cells, the immortal human cells that have fueled — and continue to fuel — more than half a century of medical advancements from the polio vaccine to HIV/AIDS research. These cells have produced over 50 million metric tons of material to provide scientists and researchers with an endless supply of human cells for testing vaccines, medicines and treatments for an untold number of diseases. It is the story of one woman’s dogged curiosity and persistent research. It is the story of a social wrong committed against a disadvantaged family. It is also the story of the beauty and complexities of science and human life.
Skloot developed an interest in HeLa cells in her junior year biology class when her instructor told the class about the cells, the name of the woman they belonged to, and her race. With no other information, Skloot’s natural curiousity was raised. Over the years as she established a career for herself as a scientific journalist, she heard about HeLa cells and their role in medical research repeatedly and she made the decision to write about Henrietta Lacks. Skloot scaled the walls of a rightfully defensive and jaundiced American family and those of the medical establishment to shed light on just who Henrietta Lacks was, how her cells came to be a basis of modern medical science and what effect this had on the family she left behind.
By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
I love any writer that can make me laugh — it’s a difficult skill to master, and without it, a writer can’t hold my attention. I recently tried to read a book combining three of my favorite subjects, touted as “hilarious”, but the humor was so poorly written that I could label each remark as to category, and why it fell flat.
This made me all the more grateful that David Sedaris is still writing books. Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls is wonderful, making me think of him as some sort of wine or cheese, mellowing out over time, and developing more complex flavors.
Great humorists are often philosophers at heart. Surprised and pained by the outrages of life, they offer us a way to carry on. Some, like Sedaris, give vent to our worst thoughts, while also demonstrating restraint in action, which serves for a convoluted moral instruction. Something about his style, combining a self-deprecating narrator, with a wishful homicidal one, rings true. He writes about long lines at the airport, his take on the European healthcare system, picking up trash along the road…
This book is a better, more even read than his previous Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, perhaps because there’s no need to use animals to illustrate human quirks and conceits — we can do that well enough by ourselves.
I liked the fact that Sedaris doesn’t try to go after a younger audience per se, he writes about his life now, but also dips back into the past, where his family has always provided plenty of material. And O magazine still calls him, “the funniest man in America”.
By Kristen Krueger-Corrado, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
Ever work a customer service job? Then this book is for you! Twenty-one authors have written short essays about their experience in working in retail. The book starts with a piece from Saugatuck-based writer Wade Rouse, who describes in all-too-painful detail his sales job at Sears. From his lisping manager to bratty kids, his tale makes working in a mall as about as appealing as gum in your hair, and yet it is easy to see ourselves as both the customer and the worker. It is hard to admit, but we’ve all been the ‘bad customer’ every now and then.
Other authors talk about working in a video store, restaurant, liquor store. Customer service jobs abound and almost every author references how happy they were to have their career in retail end. Stewart Lewis describes his stint working in a high-end spa and Wendy Spero reminisces about the summer she spent selling knives door-to-door. Some stories are funny, others make you wince and still others make you feel a little melancholy. Yet all the stories remind us that people are behind those counters and they are underpaid, under-appreciated, and take a lot of abuse.
This is a great book for everyone who has ever worked a cash register, taken an order, or shelved merchandise. To quote the film Clerks, “I wasn’t even supposed to be here today!”
By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
“Many of my childhood memories are of metals…”. Has there ever been a better first sentence since, “Call me Ishmael.”? The opening line from Dr. Sacks’ childhood memoir boils down everything I love about his books. They’re so open, honest– written in prose that’s a pure joy to read, and yet mysterious, suggesting a mind that operates on a whole different level than mine. His books are often enlightening and captivating, as he works with patients with complex neurological conditions. There’s also a certain emotional and personal connection forged, since he doesn’t hesitate to use his own experiences to illustrate some of the conditions.
So I was very excited to see what a book of his boyhood memories would be. Published in 2001, it’s the type of memoir that I can re-read every few years, without any decrease in enjoyment. From the opening sentence to the last chapter, the author demonstrates the unusual personality and creativity that one discovers in all his books.
Born in London in 1933, to parents who were both doctors, Oliver was the youngest of four, and he grew up surrounded by an extraordinary extended family. Life was paradise until the war, when he was sent away (at six!) to an unbelievably cruel boarding school for four years. When he returned home at ten, the deprivation and abuse had changed him. Recognizing this, his family encouraged his passion for chemistry, and his “Uncle Tungsten” became his mentor.
To read about his passion for re-creating the historical discoveries in chemistry, the incredible leeway that his family afforded him in his pursuits, and the odd and beautiful discoveries that he made; it’s not just a book about the author, it’s illuminating the joy that learning can bring. Thoughtful, caring, funny, and one of the most entertaining memoirs I’ve yet to read.
By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch
There are many different varieties of stolen childhood: through war, deprivation, poverty, drugs, abuse. There’s something of a subtler, terrible sadness when the loss is from an experienced sexual predator of young girls.
Margaux writes about her 15-year relationship with a man whom she felt she came to love, wanted to marry, and defended against all attackers who tried to keep them apart. The man was 51 when they met, and she was only 7. The event that finally broke them apart was his suicide at 66.
Fragoso writes so eloquently that we see him through her young non-judgmental eyes at the same time as we experience the disgust of what his “love” is doing to her. Sexually graphic, and yet, not at all titillating, Fragoso’s book is a reminder of the pathologies of the spirit that are often hidden in plain sight.
MOVEMEDIA 1, Feb. 11, at Grand Rapids Ballet’s Peter Martin Wege Theater
60-second Review
The titled theme of the Grand Rapids Ballet upcoming MOVEMEDIA: Diversity two-installment dance program was “differences make the world more beautiful”. So it seemed appropriate that the premier of three new dances, choreographed by three raising stars in the field, offered differences of interpretation and execution.
The program opened with Norbert De La Cruz III’s “The Return of Balance”, a frenetic yet, somehow, traditional offering which begins with a look back at traditional gender relationships and closes with a look toward a future without distinctions — the first highlighted by a male dancer being rebuffed as he seems to demand the attention of a female, who only accepts any advance when she invites; the second made clear when a male/female pas de deux (a dance duet) ends with the two separating and exiting the stage with dancers of their like gender.
After a break, Jennifer Archibald’s “Vapor” offered not only the most polished of the three works, in my novice opinion, but also the most aggressive and confrontational take on the theme of diversity. Archibald, in a short introductory video which included rehearsal footage, explained that she urged her dancers to fully and physically engage with their dance partners. That engagement made clear that diversity — in gender, in social hierarchy, in the limited racial spectrum the Ballet’s company could offer — is often not an easy task.
To close the program, Loughlan Prior’s “They/Them” made a stated point of costuming the dancers in a gender neutral if not gender-confused way. And, fittingly, his dance was highlighted in one way by the dancers moving forward and back over the stage’s usual backdrop, where some dancers joined the audience as spectators to the personal drama’s being played out on-stage. Inviting, accepting a world without gender, however laudable and desirable, is often a confusing to outsiders — and insiders.
Overall, from a presentation standpoint, the introductory videos by the each of the choreographers helped the audience to better understand where each offering was going as far as their artistic statements. And clearly the Ballet’s presentation of modern ballet — modern dance — by three rising stars in the dance world was welcomed by the near-sellout of a snowy Sunday matinee.
Overall, from the thematic standpoint of diversity — understanding and accepting diversity — a recurring theme from all three dances, maybe unintentionally recurring, was that the often the best connection was made between dancers when they simply, gently, touched their foreheads together.
May I have more please?
Grand Rapids Ballet upcoming second installment of the MOVEMEDIA: Diversity dance program will conclude March 23-25 at the Ballet’s Peter Martin Wege Theatre in Grand Rapids. Tickets are available.
The second MOVEMEDIA: Diversity will feature work by Olivier Wevers, Uri Sands and Danielle Rowe.
As part of the two-program MOVEMEDIA installment, Grand Rapids Ballet will partner with several local organizations in order to create “wrap-around” programming to help extend the messages to the public, according to supplied material. Those organizations include Spectrum Health, Grand Rapids Children’s Museum, Be Nice, Arbor Circle, and Out on the Lakeshore.
Tickets for MOVEMEDIA: Diversity can be purchased at the Grand Rapids Ballet box office at 341 Ellsworth Avenue SW, online at grballet.com or Ticketmaster.com, or by calling 616-454-4771 x10.
By Megan Andres, Grand Rapids Public Library, Seymour Branch
To be honest, I do not think I had heard of Laura Lippman’s work before What the Dead Know. As is the case with most readers, I looked at that inside cover summary in the hopes of finding a new and exciting book to read. From the very first page it becomes clear why Lippman has won so many writing awards for her other titles.
The story of the Bethany girls has captivated people for nearly thirty years. Two young girls, Sunny and Heather, taking a bus to the mall to see a movie on a Saturday afternoon turns into a nightmare when both girls vanish. Neighbors, colleagues, and family of the girls’ parents all suffer as the investigation reveals cracks in the family’s perfect facade. Where was their mother that Saturday? Continuing her affair with her boss. Where was their father? Drinking in a bar after finding out about the affair from the man’s own wife.
Intermixed into the story is a woman who causes an accident with a SUV. She drives off and finally pulls over only to try walking to some unknown destination. When the police locate her, it is her words that form the true mystery –“I am one of the Bethany girls.” Over the course of several days the young woman finally admits to being Heather Bethany. Investigators are uncertain. Her own mother is terrified to believe it.
Heather’s tale of abuse and murder could chill anyone’s heart. But facts still seem to be missing. Heather says Sunny was murdered that same day, but her body was never found. Heather details the man who kidnapped them: a cop. Things continue to add up but not equal out. Finally, the girls’ mother returns from Mexico. The plan is for the police to walk Heather by her to see if mothers can really know their children. With this final piece, it all falls into place in a way no one expected.
The book is fictional though based on a real abduction, but Lippman’s allusions to famous abduction/murder cases help to build the reality of life after Sunny and Heather vanish. She holds back nothing — the father who cannot bear to give up, and the mother who cannot stand to hope. This story gives the reader a new take on those stories on the news. A realization that what we hear is not the end no matter what the police find. Lippman has another award contender in What the Dead Know.
By Laura Nawrot, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main
