Now we're cookin'

From: ldavid@____
To: ldavid@___
CC: annerutledge2010@______
Sent: 3/28/2014 3:48:40 P.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Brain/Food: need help on two choices

Dear Brain/Fooder,

For our five Brain/Food gatherings this summer, we now have three certainties for July and two uncertainties for late June and mid-August. So I'm seeking your frank responses, if you have strong reactions pro or con, as we edge toward the last two decisions.

The certainties: on July 10 we'll show Baz Luhrmann's movie of The Great Gatsby to anticipate EMFA's Gatsby-era gala musicale two days later. On July 17 Kristi Dahm will talk about Winslow Homer's watercolors to inaugurate a plein air painting weekend. On July 31 we'll have a new adventure: Harriet Power and Bob Hedley will lead a discussion of Nina Raine's 2010 play Tribes ($7.60 or less at Amazon). They'll ask some volunteers to rehearse and read a few scenes too, under Harriet's internationally acclaimed direction. Tribes dramatizes an argumentative family with a deaf son whose new girlfriend is going deaf. It raises unsettling questions about how people talk and listen in various tribal hierarchies.

Now to the decisions I need your help to make. First, for August 14, Rick Freeman and Peter Hodgson are keen to lead a discussion of Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Confession, in a new Peter Carson translation, and I like that idea a lot too. Each text is about 100 pp. of big print, not difficult to read, and both raise what Peter calls "intensely interesting questions" about aging, rethinking one's life, lots of issues. Carson's translation of both texts comes in one hardback, available for $17 at Amazon, and Rick says it's cheaper on Nook or Kindle.

I'm excited about discussing Tolstoy's late narratives, but I'm not sure whether to do it as a regular gathering or as an extra. If more than 15 of you tell me you'd be likely to come on August 14 (right now 8 say yes, though a couple of those seem a little dutiful), then that's what we'll do. If it's likely to be a smaller group, we'll do it as an informal gathering in somebody's house. Rick and Peter even say they'll be reading War and Peace this summer, in the Pevsear-Volokhonsky translation, and I might read it too.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The potential downside of saying yes: if Tolstoy becomes the subject of our final gathering, that means no Brain/Food discussion of a more contemporary novel this summer. Right now Mohsin Hamid's How to Get Filthy Rich in Southeast Asia is the closest to a front runner, though it got some mixed or negative responses too. A new possibility is Richard Ford's novel, Canada. I've received mixed or negative responses along with enthusiasm for Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger, Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son, Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, Sonia Sotomayor's My Beloved World, Jeannette Haien's The All of It, Jennifer Egan's Look at Me, Henry James's What Maisie Knew, and Amor Towles' Rules of Civility, among others. Given the iffyness about all these possibilities, settling on Ivan Ilyich and Confession is fine with me. The question is whether that's okay with many of you. So please let me know: would you be likely to come to a Tolstoy Ilyich/Confession discussion on August 14, or would you pass on it? If you'd rather not, what book would you prefer?

The second decision: for the opening movie on June 26, the current front runner is Sarah Polley's quasi-documentary about her mother, Stories We Tell, with only a couple of of responders who say Don't want to see it again or Rather not. The other two strongest possibilities: Spike Jonze's Her or Short Term 12, about a damaged yet resilient young woman trying to connect with more damaged foster home transients. Its sometimes quiet dialogue may warrant subtitles, which weren't available on our Netflix disk. Another strong contender is The Past, by the Iranian director of A Separation, which we showed at Brain/Food a couple of years ago, though The Past is a little over two hours long and its plot ambiguously darkens. Some Brain/Fooders don't want movies or books that are "too depressing"; others like edge. Several responders suggest showing Twenty Feet from Stardom, though a few others think it's too slight or there's not enough to talk about. Other suggestions that haven't yet been squashed: Blue Jasmine and Incendies.

If you have strong responses yea or nay to the Tolstoy session on August 14 and/or to what movie we should see on June 26, please let me know. If you've told me already, no need to tell me again. If you have other movie or book suggestions, it's not too late to mention them. Summer can't come too soon --

David