BY FRANCINE PAINO

PBS television presented a new musical production by Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award winner John Mauceri: The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, written in 1816.  Mauceri conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, with Tony Award- winning Alan Cumming narrating this original tale in three parts.

The story written by E.T.A. Hoffman, is about a young girl who saves a prince, contrary to Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White, where the prince rescues the girl. Perhaps Hoffman’s inspiration for this particular flight of fancy was the popularity of embellished nutcrackers, which appeared in Germany in the early 1800s.  

The Nutcracker’s story began with a young boy who had to stay at home alone every day while his parents went to work. The little boy was lonely and afraid, so his father carved him a special toy, a  nutcracker in the form of a soldier with big sharp teeth and fierce-looking eyes and told him that this unique nutcracker would protect him while his parents were gone. It did the trick. The boy loved and enjoyed that nutcracker and felt secure by its presence, so his father continued to carve new ones for him.  When the boy grew up, he married and had a son to whom he gave all the nutcrackers made by his father.  

Over time in early 19th century Germany, the lure of decorative nutcrackers grew and so did a legend. They came to represent power, strength, and the protection of families from danger and evil spirits. Nutcrackers were given as gifts and keepsakes to bring good luck.  

E.T.A. Hoffman was a prolific writer of gothic tales, fantasy, and the supernatural – most of them dark including segments of his Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It was Alexander Dumas, the 19th-century French author who translated Hoffman’s work in 1845, propelling it beyond the written word.  Mauceri explains that Dumas, the grandson of the French aristocrat and African Haitian slave, was drawn to the story because Hoffman concluded the tale with the girl growing up to become the queen of a land of tolerance and imagination. It was the Dumas version that Peter Illich Tchaikovsky adopted in 1892, when he composed the score. 

          While this production does not target children, it is appropriate for those youngsters who can sit still for a narrative without pictures or characters to hold their interest. Cumming reads the narrative with emotion and even injects moments of humor without straying from the story.

The orchestra gives a stirring performance. Bold and rousing where appropriate, mysterious, sensual, and nerve-wracking also when appropriate. In addition to the lush Tchaikovsky score, compositions from Tchaikovsky’s tone poems and orchestral suites, are included in this score.  

           Mauceri’s reimagined Nutcracker and the Mouse King fill the mind’s eye with characters, places, and emotions generated by the performances of artists of the highest caliber. If you didn’t experience this fantastic flight of fancy and imagination, you could see it by accessing  https://www.pbs.org/video/the-nutcracker-and-the-mouse-king-meabwt/ 

         And now, in the true spirit of the season, love, kindness, respect, and caring, I wish all a Merry Christmas.

By Laura Oles

Anyone else enjoy re-reading favorite novels?

After a year immersed in reading new releases by talented authors, I’ve taken a step back and retreated to the comfort of reading (and watching) some of my all-time favorite series characters. When life gets stressful, curling up in a corner for a few minutes at night with a beloved character is one of my favorite ways of tuning out the chaos of the day. 

Here are a few of my favorite series characters: 

BOOKS:

Isabel (Izzy) Spellman: Isabel Spellman has been described as “the love child of Dirty Harry and Harriet the Spy,” which is one of the many reasons I love this character. As a licensed investigator in her family’s firm, she’s extremely capable and sharp, even as she navigates the pitfalls that come from working with her dysfunctional family. Her cleverness has an edge that keeps me turning the pages, and her sarcasm always sticks the landing. 

V I Warshawski:  I’m drawn to a strong and complex female protagonist, and VI absolutely fills this role. She doesn’t apologize for who she is and how she makes her way in the world. VI is skilled in a street fight, appreciates Torgiano red wine and doesn’t suffer fools. What’s not to love?

Tess Monaghan:  I discovered Tess during a time when my career required a great deal of travel. I picked up Baltimore Blues and never looked back. Tess’s investigative journalism background and her balance of strength and compassion compelled me to continue with the series. Laura Lippman gives us such a layered and authentic view of Baltimore through Tess’s eyes. And Tess ventured to go where few female detectives have dared—motherhood.

TELEVISION:

Sergeant Catherine Cawood/Happy Valley:  The first five minutes of Happy Valley remains, for me, one of the best openings I’ve ever seen in a series pilot. Sgt. Catherine Cawood is a dedicated police community officer working for the West Yorkshire Police Department.  Her personal life is enormously complicated, and a particular case consumes her (with damn good reason). Sgt. Cawood comes across as fully human, with a wit sharp enough to slice iron, and offers zero apologies for who she is and the choices she makes. 

Deputy U.S. Marshal Mary Shannon/In Plain Sight: Mary Shannon is U.S. Marshal working for the Federal Witness Protection program.  She’s a skilled investigator with a highly tuned (and hard-earned) understanding of human nature. Her complicated family backstory (her father is on the FBI’s most wanted list) informs her views on her cases and charges, but she’s first and foremost an outstanding hunter and protector. And her banter with her partner Marshall is pure gold.

Jim Rockford/The Rockford Files:. When I think about private detectives on television, my mind always goes to Jim Rockford. Maybe because he kept me company in my childhood. An ex-con who served time in San Quentin and then was later pardoned, he ran his investigative business out of a mobile home in LA and preferred fishing to most other pursuits. His father never felt being a PI was a real job, and the fact he was often getting shorted by clients didn’t help his end of the argument. Jim Rockford was fallible times, skilled at working cold cases but not always coming out on top in a brawl. He rarely used his gun. He was human, and I find that particularly appealing. And that theme song is pretty catchy, too.

Who is your favorite go-to series character? And why?

Alfred Hitchcock at his Best 

By 

Francine Paino AKA F. Della Notte

      North by Northwest, a mystery thriller filmed in the 1950s, was Alfred Hitchcock at his best, and the movie received the 1960 Edgar Alan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture. 

       The plot:  “A New York City advertising executive goes on the run after being mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and falls for a woman whose loyalties he begins to doubt.” (quote from IMB). There are a few terms and facts viewers should know before settling down in the jammies with the bowl of popcorn (light, of course). Warning: Spoilers included.

      First—the Maguffin. An object or device in a movie or book that serves merely as a trigger for the plot and receives little in the way of explanations.  In a more current film, Titanic, the search for the Heart of the Sea diamond necklace is the trigger that drives the plot and the action, but Hitchcock popularized the concept of the maguffin. In North by Northwest, there are two: The microfilm of government secrets that James Mason’s character, Vandamm is trying to sneak out of the country, and the identity of George Kaplan, who doesn’t exist – not even in the movie.  

      The movie begins in New York with a dramatic and dangerous encounter with foreign spies. Thornhill is mistaken for George Kaplan and is kidnapped, questioned, and almost killed by the Vandamm agents. He escapes and is then framed for the murder of Lester Townsend at the U.N. Grant/Thornhill begins his trek north by northwest by sneaking onto a train headed for Chicago, pursued by the evil foreign agents and the police. Here he meets Eva Marie Saint/ Eve Kendall, a confidant of Vandamm’s, played by James Mason.

      In Chicago, Grant/Thornhill leaves the train disguised as a porter with the help of Saint/Kendall and is set up to meet the elusive George Kaplan at the Prairie Stop, Highway 41, a little-used route more than an hour outside of Chicago. Here, Hitchcock creates a scene that became the forerunner for future action movies, especially the James Bond Series. 

      Hitchcock doesn’t do the usual dark city street motif for a deadly attack on Grant/Thornhill. Instead, Hitchcock has him vulnerable in an open field and targeted by a  small aircraft with firepower.  After diving to the ground several times, Grant/Thornhill sees a cornfield and runs for cover, but in comes the small aircraft again, this time employing its crop-dusting capabilities to cover him in a cloud of chemicals and flush him out.  As the small plane circles to make a second pass, a tanker truck barrels down the highway. Grant/Thornhill jumps out in front of it, forcing the driver to stop, but the small plane misjudges and crashes into the oil truck. Both explode.  Now a few innocent bystanders appear, traveling on this up-until-now deserted road. They stop their cars and get out, to get a closer look at the disaster.  Grant/Thornhill slinks past them, steals one of their vehicles, and escapes. 

      As the story unfolds, we discover who Eve Kendall is, and we learn there is no George Kaplan, but the most dramatic scenes that end the movie take place on the remarkable stone-carved Mt. Rushmore monument, where Grant/Thornhill and Saint/Kendall try to escape by descending the faces of Rushmore, pursued and shot at by Vandamm’s agents.  

      To my great disappointment, the only authentic shots of the remarkable stone carvings of Rushmore were from a distance.  Although Hitchcock had a permit to film at the monument, government officials banned the production when word got out that the writers scripted a fight scene and a couple of deaths. Thus, the hard work of climbing, falling, and fighting took place in Hollywood, and Mt. Rushmore was created by Hollywood trickery, using set pieces, special effects, and clever camera work—but don’t let that stop you from watching.

      Of course, like most movies of those times, the good guy (Thornhill) gets the girl (Kendall), and like so many Hitchcock thrillers, the drama is intense even when you know it’s Hollywood and how it will end, but politics aside, Mt. Rushmore is its own dramatic story. 

      John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum created this remarkable feat of sculpting and engineering.  In the summer of 1925, at the age of 57, Borglum went to South Dakota and began the project. Work on the sculpture started in 1927. Borglum remained devoted to the project until he died in Chicago, and his son Lincoln put the finishing touches on his father’s vision. Sadly, however, what’s left out of this remarkable story is that in 1933, Borglum hired Italian immigrant, Luigi del Bianco as the chief stone carver and paid him $1.50 an hour. (Excellent pay in those days. ) Del Bianco was tasked with more than the rough work of blowing up rocks and carving out simple shapes. He was entrusted with many of the finer points of creating those faces.  Among his many duties, Del Bianco was entrusted with carving the detail in the faces. He cut Abraham Lincoln’s eyes and patched a dangerous crack in Thomas Jefferson’s lip. 

      Borglum constantly praised del Bianco for his outstanding abilities as a classically trained stone carver: “He is worth any three men in America for this particular type of work…. He is the only intelligent, efficient stone carver on the work who understands the language of the sculptor….We could double our progress if we had two like Bianco.”(Wiki)

      Despite Borglum’s high regard, del Bianco, the Italian, was ignored until finally, three-quarters of a century later, his family fought for and won the recognition he so richly deserved. In 2017, a plaque was placed at the monument to honor his work as the chief sculptor.

      So, one might say that North by Northwest is a mystery/ thriller filled with high drama both on and off the set, both fictitious and real. I’ve watched North by Northwest many times and always discover something new with each viewing.  

Enjoy!

BY

Francine Paino AKA  F. Della Notte

What exactly are these spherical bodies contained in the skull?  They appear as an orbit of different shapes, some round or oblong, curved, and dense, with a white membrane surrounding a circular colored portion called the iris.  The pupil centered in the iris is an opening through which light passes to the retina, making eyes the windows to the world. But they are so much more. As the saying goes, they are also the outside world’s windows to the soul. 

     There are over one hundred biblical references to the power of eyes. However, most in the Bible reflect the good and evil in the inner man/woman. In Matthew 5:28: But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Perhaps my favorite is Proverbs 21:4: Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin.  Moving from biblical times to today, eyes have not lost their power. 

Eyes are the most written about body parts as a symbolic expression and revelation of human emotions in songs. Body language too speaks, showing tension, joy, fear, mystery, but emotions pool in and project most powerfully from the eyes. The eyes are not limited in expression. Love, hate, justice, judgment, clairvoyance, even horror can be reflected in the eyes. 

As in biblical times, even in today’s world, these blinkers are often an extension of how the human soul projects itself. Some song titles express an individual quest. In The Eye of the Tiger, an athlete drives himself to reach the top of his game. In You Can’t Hide Your Lying Eyes, a woman cheating on her husband tries to tell him that she’s going to comfort a friend. Still, in her eyes, he sees the truth contradicting her words, and in Goodbye in her Eyes, a young man reads the end of a relationship in the eyes of the woman he loves.  

The range of emotions expressed in just one look runs the gamut from the depths of love to the depths of hate, and everything in between, including pain, jealousy, and mystery. Does anyone have difficulty understanding “his eyes blazed with fury,” or “her eyes softened with love when they placed the newborn baby in her arms?”  

On Goodreads, one finds a list of 278 books with body parts in the titles. But the eyes are used the most. In the words of Flannery O’Connor, who said that writers are painters with words, “Everything has its testing point in the eye, and the eye is an organ that eventually involves the whole personality and as much of the world as can be got into it.” One look can say more than a thousand words. Even closed eyes speak. Is the person avoiding something, someone, grieving, hiding?

Sometimes we even compare human eyes to animal’s. The fierceness of Tiger eyes as used in the above song title; the gentle loyalty of the dog gazing into his master’s eyes. Cats have fascinating eye language. Dilated pupils on a cat indicate excitement, while constricted pupils mean watch out!  This cat is angry and may be ready to attack. And, as all cat owners know, in those quiet moments, squinting eyes reveal a relaxed, happy feline, sometimes ready to fall asleep.  

As a writer, I’m very aware of the power of expression emanating from my human and feline characters.  In my Housekeeper Mystery Series, I can see their eyes and feel their emotions and the reaction those expressions generate in others. In the third book in the series, The Church Murders and the Cat’s Prey, one character has unusual amber-colored eyes with thick black lashes. Not only is the eye color striking, but one look from those eyes sends chills down our protagonist, Mrs. B.’s arms.  

There is no underestimating the importance of painting characters with words and showing the reader their body language, facial expressions, and most of all, the power of the messages cast from those orbits. Who doesn’t have warning bells go off when reading, “he smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes,” or, “she said, ‘no harm done,’ but her eyes said there’d be hell to pay.”

There is even a blog about what the eye color tells you. Have some fun and try it at https://blog.freepeople.com/2013/09/eye-color-meaning/ 

Eyes can be so expressive, and in reality, words alone are not always necessary to have a conversation. 

Thus, the eyes do have it.