"Shallows At Dusk" Wins Mitchell Environmental Conservation Award

“North Cove Shallows at Dusk” Wins John G. Mitchell Award

By markrogerbailey

“North Cove Shallows at Dusk” (2012) by Mark Roger Bailey

My photograph, “North Cove Shallows at Dusk,” has received the 2013 John G. Mitchell Environmental Conservation Award.

The award by the Land/Conservation Trusts of Lyme, Old Lyme, Salem, Essexand East Haddam (CT) honors the American environmentalist and former editor of National Geographic Magazine, John G. Mitchell (d. 2007). Past editor of Sierra Club Books and a longtime field editor and writer for Audubon Magazine, he also wrote many books, including LOSING GROUND (1975), ALASKA STORIES (1984), and DISPATCHES FROM THE DEEP WOODS (1991).

I captured this photo in Essex, CT late one April afternoon. The river bottom stones in the foreground, the larger boulders in the middle distance sharing the deepening water and the reflected glow of sunset spoke to me about the interconnectedness of our existence along the banks of one of America’s great rivers.

1930 Model A Ford parked under patriotic bunting before the Griswold Inn, Essex, CT (2012)

My photograph of an antique Ford automobile, “Model A Before Griswold Inn,” placed second in the Cultural Historic category.

Oscar Appreciates A Good Novel

The 82nd Academy Awards, 7 March 2010

Cheers for the writers who created novels, non-fiction books, and memoirs that inspired filmmakers to bring their characters and stories to life on the silver screen.

Oscar nominees derived from a Novel:

“A Single Man” (1964) by Christopher Isherwood

“Crazy Heart” (1987) by Thomas Cobb

“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (1970) by Roald Dahl

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (2005) by J. K. Rowling

“Precious” based on the novel “Push” (1996) by Sapphire

“The Last Station” (1990) by Jay Parini

“The Lovely Bones” (2002) by Alice Sebold

“Up In The Air” (2001) by Walter Kirn

Oscar nominees derived from a Book (non fiction):

“Coco Before Chanel” based on the book, “Chanel and Her World” (2005) by Edmonde Charles-Roux

“Invictus” based on the book, “Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation” (2008) by John Carlin

“Julie and Julia” by Julie Powell, (“My Life in France” [posthumous] autobiography by Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme)

“The Blind Side”  by Michael Lewis (“The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game”) (2008)

Oscar nominees derived from a Memoir:

“An Education” by Lynn Barber

LAST ORDERS | Graham Swift

Graham Swift‘s sixth novel, LAST ORDERS (1996), follows a day in the lives of the friends, spouse and children of Jack Arthur Dodds, butcher, recently deceased. Their day of remembrance is a metaphor for the ordinary, earnest yet flawed, occasionally misspent life. 

Following Jack’s three men friends and his son as they carry his ashes to the sea at Margate to fulfill one final wish is as driven, surreal and overarchingly important as a salmon’s return up a twisted and turbulent river to its life starting point.  The why of it is never quite clear to subjects, just like real life.  Perhaps Jack’s friends, son and wife discover that nothing in life should go to waste, including one last opportunity to unite with friends and family in the only place that ever held any hope of romantic significance for him. Margate was his Shangri-La, his hope for his and Amy’s connection to each other, even at the end of an estranged lifetime.

Uncompromising in his use of ordinary thoughts and language by the ordinary people of Bermondsey, south London, Swift establishes his contract with the reader early and never lets him or her down.

It aint like your regular sort of day.

…begins Swift and continues with absolute, unblinking objectivity, and an unerring ear for the deceptive riches in thought and dialogue.  At first, the similarity of voice between the characters – Jack Arthur Dodds’ understated, reticent butcher; Vince Dodds, his cagey son; Amy, his wife who chose their mentally disabled daughter, June, over her husband; Ray Johnson, his unreliable mate; Lenny Tate, his resentful Army buddy; Vic Tucker, his funeral director; and Mandy, the stray taken in by Vince – made following the changes in voice difficult to follow. I kept referring back to the chapter titles to see who was carrying the story forward.  Soon, however, each character’s emotional process and relationship with the deceased rippled outward and overlapped other characters’ process and responses.  Before long, cross currents became waypoints and I grew compelled by the journey and the back stories.  Swift’s exploration of ordinary lives in this novel is extraordinarily skilled.

This quiet novel speaks volumes about the quiet lives of its ordinary middle-class south London characters. In doing so, it speaks to the rest of us.

Graham Swift’s interview in SALON

The Booker Prize, which is often a reliable guide to literary excellence, is what originally attracted me to LAST ORDERS.

Last Orders