The Turning Point?

DEAR GEORGE, In the grand scheme of things, this is a significant time. One year ago the nation went into a pandemic lockdown, and our lives changed drastically, becoming much more constricted. With more and more vaccinations given every day, we may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. In the midst of this medical crisis, we’ve also just ended the worst four-year presidency in American history, and we’re seeing a gradual restoration of democracy. 2021 looks more hopeful by the day.

Katja and I got our second Moderna vaccination last month, and, paradoxically, I seem to have gotten more depressed as a consequence. While you’d think this would be exhilarating, virtually nothing in our life has changed. I’m choosing not to do online OLLI classes or to go out to restaurants or other public places. No travelling, no gatherings with friends. My doctor has advised me not to return to the fitness center for a couple of months. In part because of my own lack of creativity, the last twelve months have been a loss of priceless time.

On the up side, there are signs of spring everywhere in our neighborhood — yellow flowers, the first white flowering tree blooming outside the bank, green buds on the shrubs and trees. I counted fifteen dandelions on our morning dog walk. Patrons are starting to return to our Ludlow Avenue restaurants, and the art museum resumed its normal hours last week. Perhaps we’ll soon start normalizing too.

One significant event in our household is that the repair technician came last week to restore our Hammond Chord organ that has been languishing for decades in my upstairs junk room. My parents bought the chord organ in the early 1950’s so that we children would have the opportunity to play music. Though not the most complex or sophisticated instrument, Vicki and I were serious aficionados. When Vic and Doris sold our house on the river in the early 1970’s, Katja and I rented a U-Haul trailer and brought the chord organ to Cincinnati. The last time it was played was about 1990 when J crooned love songs to K, his college sweetheart. I’ve been playing it for about an hour a day for the last week. The pages of music have turned yellow, but the books are full of great classics (e.g., Old Buttermilk Sky; Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue; I’m Getting Sentimental Over You), and I’m amazed at how quickly playing the chord organ comes back.

We do have other exciting times coming up. J and family are coming to Cincinnati in April for a weeklong visit, and Katja and I will go to California in July for her niece’s wedding. I plan to return to the fitness center by early summer, I hope that my writers’ group will start meeting by then, and I expect that OLLI will resume in-person classes in the fall. Time to break out of my funk and start enjoying life again. LOVE, DAVE

Netflix and Amazon Prime Favorites

DEAR GEORGE, Like the rest of the world, we’ve watched a lot more TV than usual in the past twelve months of the pandemic, and we’ve run across many enjoyable offerings that we might not have otherwise seen. Katja and I both are drawn to murder mysteries, action thrillers, and BBC productions. Katja also likes historical dramas, biographies, and documentaries, while I lean toward comedies, sci-fi, and horror. Of the approximately one hundred shows that we’ve watched in recent months, here are our top ten favorite series currently available on Netflix and on Amazon Prime. I’ve also included Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer scores for each show [RT]. LOVE, DAVE

TOP TEN, NETFLIX: (#1) Schitt’s Creek. (Comedy) Rich video magnate Johnny Rose and his family find themselves broke and are forced to regroup in Schitt’s Creek. [RT = 93%]; (#2) Breaking Bad. (Crime/drama) A high school chemistry teacher ill with cancer turns to manufacturing meth to secure his family’s future. [RT = 96%]; (#3) Pose. (Drama) The story of ball culture and the gay and trans community in the late 80s and early 90s during the AIDS crisis. [RT = 96%]; (#4) The Crown. (Biography/drama) The political rivalries and romances of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign during the second half of the twentieth century. [RT = 91%]; (#5) The Good Place. (Comedy/drama/fantasy) Four people and their mentor struggle in the afterlife to define what it means to be good. [RT = 97%]; (#6) Fauda. (Action/drama/thriller) The human stories on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict. [RT = 100%]; (#7) The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. (Crime/drama) Explores the murder of designer Gianni Versace by spree killer Andrew Cunanan. [RT = 89%]; (#8) The Last Kingdom. (Action/drama/history) As Alfred the Great defends his kingdom from Norse invaders, Uhtred seeks to claim his ancestral birthright. [RT = 91%]; (#9) Marcella. (Mystery/drama) Having left the Metropolitan Police for her family’s sake, Marcella returns to her job on the murder squad. [RT = 70%]; (#10) The Sinner. (Crime/drama/mystery) An anthology series that examines why ordinary people commit brutal crimes. [RT = 90%].

TOP TEN, AMAZON PRIME: (#1) The Night Manager. (Crime/mystery/drama) The night manager of a Cairo hotel is recruited to infiltrate an arms dealer’s inner circle. [RT = 91%]; (#2) The Durrells in Corfu. (Biography/cmedy/drama) Based on the real-life events of the Durrell family as they resettle from England to Greece. [RT = 94%]; (#3) Curb Your Enthusiasm. (Comedy) The life and times of Larry David and the predicaments he gets himself into. [RT = 92%]; (#4) Goliath. (Drama) A disgraced lawyer gets a case that could bring him redemption. [RT = 82%]; (#5) Mozart in the Jungle. (Comedy/drama/music) A brash new maestro stirs up the New York Symphony as young oboist Hailey hopes for her big chance. [RT = 94%]; (#6) The Americans. (Crime/drama/mystery) At the height of the cold war two Russian agents pose as an average American couple complete with family. [RT = 96%];(#7) Line of Duty. (Crime/drama/mystery) Follows the investigations of AC-12, a controversial police anti-corruption unit. [RT = 100%]; (#8) Get Shorty. (Comedy/crime) The adventures of a mobster-turned-movie producer in Hollywood. [RT = 95%]; (#9) A Very English Scandal. (Biography/comedy/crime) British Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe is accused of conspiracy to murder his gay ex-lover. [RT = 97%]; (#10) Vikings. (Action/adventure/drama)m The brutal and mysterious world of Ragnar Lothbrok, a Viking warrior who years to explore and raid the distant shores across the ocean. [RT = 93%];

A Quick Chat at City Lights

DEAR GEORGE, I was saddened recently to read that Lawrence Ferlinghetti, counter-culture poet and founder of San Francisco’s City Lights Bookstore, had died at the age of 101. Ferlinghetti has always been one of my favorite poets, and, because we Antiochians regarded ourselves as fledgling beatniks, he was a significant role model in my youth. I actually met Ferlinghetti briefly when I was spending the summer of 1959 in San Francisco. I’d driven out before my final year of college to decide, once and for all, whether or not to devote my life to becoming a writer. I saw an ad for a poetry reading by Ferlinghetti at City Lights and decided to go. The Beat Generation had been around for five or six years, and San Francisco (and the City Lights Bookstore specifically) was one of its major centers, drawing icons like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso. Ferlinghetti had recently published his first collection, “A Coney Island of the Mind”, and he was reading selections. By the time I arrived the bookstore was packed to capacity, and employees were putting the few remaining chairs up on the stage. As it turned out, I took the last seat, right next to Ferlinghetti himself who was already at the podium. Before the reading started, he turned to me and asked if I were a writer. I said that I was trying to be and explained that I’d come to the city from Antioch to devote myself to writing fiction. When I expressed dismay at the string of rejection letters I’d gotten, Ferlinghetti was encouraging and said he’d gone through the same start to his own career. That filled me with inspiration and I churned out a dozen more short stories during my remaining month in San Francisco. All of them were rejected, of course. The following summer Katja and I got married and moved to Ann Arbor for grad school, that proving to be the end of my beatnik days as well as my quasi-writing career. However, I still have good memories of my exciting encounter at the City Lights Bookstore. LOVE, DAVE