The name of this Van Gogh painting is “Undergrowth With Two Figures”
Some details:
Oil on canvas 50.0 x 100.5 cm. Auvers-sur-Oise: June, 1890 F 773, JH 2041
Cincinnati: The Cincinnati Art Museum
In a letter to his younger brother, Theo, dated June 30, 1890, van Gogh explained the structure and brilliant colors of “Undergrowth with Two Figures”: “The trunks of the violet poplars cross the landscape perpendicularly like columns,” adding “the depth of Sous Bois is blue, and under the big trunks the grass blooms with flowers in white, rose, yellow, and green.” (google Art&Culture)
Well, this really happened. I think writing the story was my way of processing it.
Training
“See that guy?” Rhonda, the senior server, pointed through the circle of glass in the swinging door between the kitchen and dining room.
Genevieve nodded. The lone man, bald and age-spotted, occupied a table in an otherwise empty room filled with faded Victoriana and late autumn sunlight, eating the breakfast Rhonda had just delivered.
“He eats the same thing every time he comes here. Always alone, a couple times a year late in the season. Eggs Benedict. Bring him two sweet rolls and decaf. You’re new, so he won’t trust you, especially after I’m gone. Bring a steak knife with the eggs. Bring a separate dinner plate of kale.”
“To eat?” Genevieve asked, thinking of the tough crunchy stuff between her own teeth.
“Yeah, the whole plate. Gross, huh?”
“And a knife for poached eggs?”
Laughter erupted in the kitchen behind them. Rhonda smirked, drawing out the moment, Genevieve thought.
“Yeah,” Rhonda said. “So he can kill you if you get his order wrong.”
“Shut up. He’s a nice guy. He tips good.” The red-haired server, Kyleigh, wrung out a clean rag by the sink. “Don’t listen to him, Gen, they’re just trying to scare you.”
The sweating breakfast cook, surrounded by boiling pots, said, “Just don’t make him mad, new girl.”
“Don’t marry him and make him mad!” the prep cook shouted.
“They can’t prove anything,” Kyleigh called back, anger in her voice.
Rhonda glanced through the little window again, Genevieve beside her. Their customer read with his folded newspaper propped against the coffee carafe, cutting up kale with a knife and fork.
“Keep it down, you guys,” Rhonda hissed. “Come here, you.” She pulled Genevieve away from the door, to the other side of the room where the table for salad prep stood, littered with diced tomato, onion, and cucumber. Rhythmic chopping filled the air.
“Listen. Last year there was an article in the Globe about him. His wife disappeared. At their house, the police found blood.” She paused again, leaning a little closer to Genevieve. “It was hers.”
The prep cook wiped at his red face with his sleeve. “No body, no crime.”
Genevieve pulled her braid nervously. What would she say to the man if he sat in her station? How could she look him in the eye knowing everyone thought he’d murdered his wife?
“You have to have motive,” the salad prep said. “It’s not like he’ll get her life insurance, not until they find her.”
“Maybe she left.” Kyleigh pulled the toaster crumb tray out from the ancient toaster and wiped it off into the sink.
“Maybe she has dementia and wondered away. My grandma does that all the time.” Genevieve started folding napkins, unsure how she felt about contributing to the conversation. She didn’t like to gossip, but it was hard to avoid here.
Kyleigh brushed crumbs from her hands. “Oh, that’s so sad.”
“Maybe she was wicked sick?” The new dish washer brushed by Genevieve with a rack of steaming hot silverware to sort. “Maybe it was a mercy killing.”
“There would be medical records.” The salad prep popped a head of lettuce onto the sideboard and ripped out its stem. “Dr. Kevorkian he’s not.”
“The cops always suspect the person closest to the victim,” Rhonda said, heading back for the dining room. She stopped short with a gasp.
The door swung open, then fell back. A grunt as the heavy wood landed on the arm wrapped in a gray cashmere sweater, accompanied by a rattle of plates.
The breakfast cook bared his teeth and cocked his head. “Heeere’s Johnny!”
Genevieve didn’t think it was funny anymore.
Rhonda swore and waved her arms. “It’s him.”
Kyleigh said, “He can’t come back here. Stop him, Gen.” She wiped her buttery hands on a cloth with quick movements. “Jesus, never mind. Hey, Mr. W,” she sing-song-ed, putting a sashay into her walk. “You’ve got to give the door a hard kick—if he slips and sues us—Gee, are you looking for a job, we’ve got plenty of work back here for you.”
She held the door for him, then took the plates with expert ease as he peered bashfully around the room. Once she unloaded the plates by the dish pit, she led him back to the door, sweet talking him into the dining room. She threw a glare over her shoulder at them. Nobody spoke. Work had effectively stopped.
“Boy, he’s an old man,” the dishwasher finally said.
My very first novel was set in 12th century Siena. I completed it in 2012 or so, and it was a hot mess, but I got it done. I had only ever completed two short stories before this, and I knew I wanted to write novels and not short stories, so seeing this 100,000 word monster through was important. This particular incarnation won’t see the light of day, but the setting, the story, and the main characters stayed with me, and I’m hoping to get their story reworked and completed one day.
In the 12th century, Florence and Siena were rivals, divided by many things over the decades. This is the era of Dante, before he was exiled, when he was a young man mooning over Beatrice. There is a famous battle, painted on the walls in a municipal building in Siena’s Campo depicting the battle of Montaperti in 1260.
Siena, like so many towns in Italy, is built on a hill and dates back to Roman times, so it was originally a fort. It’s famous for the horse race, the Palio, that sends bareback riders zooming around the Campo, an ancient tradition.
The military nature of medieval Tuscany is why Siena is divided into contrade, neighborhoods with specific insignia and traditions and intertwining families. When the alarm bells rang, the men of the neighborhoods would go to the warehouse nearby where they kept the weapons. The contrade each also train and race the horses, with colors and emblems centuries old. Each contrade has a church and museum. Tourists don’t go in them. Siena and the Sienese are not interested in tourists or the tourist economy. Sienese see through tourists. It’s very strange compared to other destinations, but I knew about it before we took this trip. The people and the town are very insular, but I’ve read some interesting books about outsiders adopted by a contrada. If you’re interested, Seven Seasons In Siena by Robert Rodi is a book I highly recommend.
Tourists usually only go for day trips to Siena, but we stayed a week. It’s tiny but charming and we walked through all the contrade and from gate to gate to gate. Lots of very steep hills to get the cardio going. I was already in love with the Siena in my head, and I’m dying to go back.
I’m posting some pictures showing the contrade symbols and colors so you can get an idea. They don’t represent any ideals, and I’m not sure what their origins are. There are abolished contrade, too, from before a massive consolidation in the 18th century.
Also, keep in mind this is where the original Romeo and Juliet story came from. A book about this, fiction, is Juliet by Anne Fortier, highly recommended. Writing about them makes me want to read them all over again!
A little hand-drawn love for the Forest…
The black and white flag, if I remember correctly, is the Wolf contrada. Lupa refers to the she-wolf, of Remus and Romulus fame, and the legendary founders of Siena, Senius and Aschius, Remus’s sons.
Onda, the wave. All the contrade also have allies and enemies in the other contrade.
Valley of the Ram. I love all the little embellishments, and they mark the boundaries.
There are 17 contrade. And this post was quite a rabbit hole!
The thing about posting the pictures is that I get to relive those moments again. Porto, Portugal is the first place we traveled to post Covid in 2022. In 2019 we were in Granada, but the beloved’s mom, The Lovely Linda, was ill and it was a bittersweet trip, because we knew it was the end, and she was gone the next month. She’s the one who gave us the means, when we were younger, to travel, as she had the wanderlust. The next year, on the eve of the pandemic, we were at her memorial in Baltimore, Maryland, and that’s the last place we visited before the shut downs started.
So Porto was meant to be extra special, and as it turns out, one of the most magical places we’ve visited. The people in general were absolutely sweet and the streets along the Douro River were filled with music and vendors. A party atmosphere pervaded; I think we weren’t the only ones relieved to be out and about and still standing. It was September, and the weather was much like ours was back home, hot and humid, and some days it rained, but that was okay. We weren’t there for the beach.
I just wanted to highly recommend this one if you like “retro sci-fi and analog horror.”
I listen to a lot of different types of podcasts and this one is one of the more excellent story podcasts. I love the premise: stories told through fractured found footage by a mysterious Observer as he tries to make sense of what he’s hearing and what’s going on beyond the wall where he lives.
As the walls of the house at Predicament Avenue reveal their hidden truths, two women–generations apart–discover that fear and foreboding are no respecters of time.
In 1910, Effie James is committed to doing anything to save her younger sister, who witnessed a shocking murder, leaving her mute and in danger of the killer’s retribution. Effie must prove what her sister saw, but when a British gentleman arrives, he disrupts Effie’s quest with his attempts to locate his wife, Isabelle Addington, who was last seen at the supposed crime scene in the abandoned house at 322 Predicament Avenue. Just as Effie discovers what she seeks, she finds that the blood staining the walls will forever link her to a scandal she couldn’t imagine, and to a woman whose secrets promise to curse any who would expose them.
A century later, Norah Richman grapples with social anxiety and grief as she runs her late great-aunt’s bed-and-breakfast on Predicament Avenue. But Norah has little affection for the house and is committed only to carrying out her murdered sister’s dreams until crime historian and podcaster Sebastian Blaine arrives to investigate the ghostly legacy of the house’s claim to fame–the murder of Isabelle Addington. When a guest is found dead, the incident is linked to Isabelle’s murder, and Norah and Sebastian must work together to uncover the century-old curse that has wrapped 322 Predicament Avenue in its clutches and threatens far more than death.
AUTHOR BIO
Jaime Jo Wright (JaimeWrightBooks.com) is the author of ten novels, including Christy Award and Daphne du Maurier Award-winner The House on Foster Hill and Carol Award winner The Reckoning at Gossamer Pond. She’s also a two-time Christy Award finalist, as well as the ECPA bestselling author of The Vanishing at Castle Moreau and two Publishers Weekly bestselling novellas. Jaime lives in Wisconsin with her family and felines.
NetGalley Description: “River Mumma is a love letter to culture, home, and coming of age—and will spark important, relevant book club conversations, too.” —Marissa Stapley, New York Times bestselling author of Lucky
Issa Rae’s Insecure with a magical realist spin: River Mumma is an exhilarating contemporary fantasy novel about a young Black woman who navigates her quarter-life-crisis while embarking on a mythical quest through the streets of Toronto.
Alicia has been out of grad school for months. She has no career prospects and lives with her mom, who won’t stop texting her macabre news stories and reminders to pick up items from the grocery store.
Then, one evening, the Jamaican water deity, River Mumma, appears to Alicia, telling her that she has twenty-four hours to scour the city for her missing comb.
Alicia doesn’t understand why River Mumma would choose her. She can’t remember all the legends her relatives told her, unlike her retail co-worker Heaven, who can reel off Jamaican folklore by heart. She doesn’t know if her childhood visions have returned, or why she feels a strange connection to her other co-worker Mars. But when the trio are chased down by malevolent spirits called duppies, they realize their tenuous bonds to each other may be their only lifelines. With the clock ticking, Alicia’s quest through the city broadens into a journey through time—to find herself and what the river carries.
Energetic and invigorating, River Mumma is a vibrant exploration of diasporic community and ancestral ties, and a homage to Jamaican storytelling by one of the most invigorating voices in today’s literature.
“This quirky, fizzy, charming debut surprises and amuses. Reid-Benta writes beautifully, drawing on Caribbean mythologies to create a fast paced and entertaining tale. It’s rare to find a novel written with such humour and heart.” —T. L. Huchu, USA Today Bestselling author of The Library of the Dead
Review by Coffee & Ink
I’m not familiar with Caribbean folklore, and I loved this contemporary novel deeply steeped in the rhythm and the culture of the diaspora in Toronto. The voice and the writing really is fizzy, as the reviewer T.L. Huchu described it.
The story is about three young people (I guess I only say this because I’m old, lol) who consider themselves work friends and not much more. Alicia’s ancestor’s encounter with the uncanny leads to River Mumma finding Alicia and requiring her help and locating her golden comb. Or else.
Alicia, who is well-schooled in the folklore of Jamaica because of her mother and grandmother, knows what “or else” will mean for the world. River Mumma will make the rivers dry up if Alicia can’t find the comb.
Thus begins a quest that pulls in Alicia’s work friends, Heaven and Mars, and as all the good quests in the world’s stories, they grow closer, learn more about each other and themselves, and fight monsters all at the same time.
Highly recommended if you love #ownvoices magical realism and urban fantasy.
Thank you NetGalley and Kensington for a copy of this book to read and review.
I can’t recall who the artist is, but it’s an homage to the wives of the fishermen who used to be away for months at a time fishing cod…
“The 30-foot-tall Maman spider sculpture crawls along the river’s edge just outside the Guggenheim. One of French-American artist Louise Bourgeois’ most ambitious works, the arachnid is cast of bronze and stainless steel, with marble eggs. Crafted as a tribute to her mother, a weaver, it was installed in 1999.” Joshua Mellin
The Guggenheim, built to look like the sails of a ship…
Coffee And Ink 
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