Monthly Archives: July 2024

No Rules:

31 July 2024 By in Movies, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The British are losing to Hitler’s Atlantic U-Boat campaign systematically sinking Allied military and commercial shipping. Churchill is under pressure from his military to surrender but demurs and goes unconventional by creating a small cadre of misfits to destroy the U-Boat program with a no-rules program and James Bond daring.

A well told story of British humor meeting up with Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant. Lots of gratuitous violence and no sex.

Genre:  Action– Comedy–Drama–Thriller–War

Directed by: Guy Ritchie

Screenplay by: Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Arash Amel, Guy Ritchie

Music by:  Christopher Benstead

Cast: Henry Cavill, Elza Gonzalez, Alan Richson, Alex Pettyfer

Film Locations:  Turkey and England

Els:  7.5/10

IMDb:  6.9/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  69/100

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  93/100

Metacritic Metascore:  55/100

Metacritic User Score:  6.6/10

Theaters: 13 April 2024

Streaming: 10 May 2024

Runtime: 120 minutes

Budget:  $60 Million

Worldwide Box Office:  $27.8 Million

Source: IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, Wikipedia. Graphic: Movie Poster by Lionsgate

Longshadow Sequel Syrah 2018

30 July 2024 By in Red Wine Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Syrah/Shiraz from Columbia Valley, USA

Purchase Price: $120 (restaurant)

International Wine Report 98, Jeb Dunnuck 97, Jame Suckling 94, Vinous 95, Elsbob 96

ABV 14.9%

Deep purple in color, aromas of black fruits, chocolate, and oak, medium to full bodied, medium tannic, dry, with medium acidity. I enjoyed this remarkable wine with a 6-ounce medium well-done filet and a side of grilled asparagus. Delicious.

A superb wine at a reasonable price. It currently retails at about $75, if you can find it, which is less than half what most wines in this rated category cost.

Cactus: Temple of Blues—Influences & Friends

29 July 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Carmine Appice, rock drummer extraordinaire, in an unguarded moment of over-exuberance has expanded his Cactus band to proportions that could be considered ‘just right’, producing a re-imagined compilation of previously recorded Cactus songs that may be simply stated as full throttle blues, boogie and rock sensations.

Released on disc and vinyl by Cleopatra Records on 7 June 2024, Cactus’ ‘Temple of Blues: Influences and Friends’ showcases 14 of the band’s greatest songs from their first 3 albums that they recorded in the early 1970s.

Appice brings in a who’s who of past and present marquee rockers, including Joe Bonamassa, Ted Nugent, Billy Sheehan, Dee Snider, Pat Travers, Warren Hayes, and many others to compliment the bands songs along with a few blues standards such as Willie Dixon’s ‘Evil’.

Carmine Appice, ranked the 28th ‘Greatest Drummer of All Time’ by the Rolling Stone in 2016, formed and played not only for Cactus but also was an original member of the 60s psychedelic band: Vanilla Fudge, the power rock trio Beck, Bogert, & Appice and was part of Rod Stewart’s backing band.

In the trivia department the ‘Temple of Blues’ cover shows a picture of the original Cactus lineup in the background arch of the temple (from left Bogert, Day, McCarty, and Appice) which comes from a trade ad that ran in a 1970 Billboard issue.

Source: Cleopatra Records. Graphic: Cactus Album Cover, Cleopatra Records copyright.

Burial of the Count of Orgaz

28 July 2024 By in Art Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The 1586 painting, Burial of the Count of Orgaz is considered El Greco’s greatest work, which he created during his later mannerist phase of the High Renaissance. Mannerist paintings are known for their exaggerated proportions of figures and structures and the use of very intense colors.

The painting is large, almost 16’ by 12’, oil on canvas divided into two halves with the Count being buried by Saints Stephan and Augustine, per local legend, in the lower half and in the upper half his soul, depicted as a child, is transported to heaven.

The painting was commissioned by El Greco’s parish priest, Andres Nunez de Madrid, to remind Orgaz’s relatives that they were obligated by the Count’s will to provide a yearly donation to his church in Toledo, Spain.

Source: El Greco by Michael Scholz-Hansel, 2016, Taschen. Graphic: Burial of the Count of Orgaz by El Greco, Public Domain

Journalism–Christopher Newton

27 July 2024 By in Journalism Tags: , Leave a comment

Christopher Newton was fired by the Associated Press in September of 2002 for creating individuals and institutions whose existence could not be verified. The A.P. could not find 45 of the journalist’s sources along with numerous institutions that he cited in his stories.

The story that brought Newton’s fabrications to light was an article on criminal justice where he postulated that a drop in crime was due to the increased incarceration of criminals. In that article he cited two individuals, Ralph Myers and Bruce Fenmore, both of whom could not be verified, and referenced an institute that was also non-existent.

In an interesting and ironic aside, his fictious creations were brought to light when a criminologist at the University of Missouri, Richard Rosenfeld, called, ironically, Fox Butterfield of the New York Times and object of ‘The Butterfield Effect’ (more on that next week) and said that he had never heard of Fenmore or Myers. Upon further inquiries Newton’s career soon came to an appropriate and ignoble end.

Source: Couldn’t Find…by Felicity Barringer, NY Times, 2002. Graphic: AI generated, 2024.

Nitrogen and Climate:

26 July 2024 By in Climate, Physics Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

In a new Nature paper by Gong et al suggest that anthropogenic reactive nitrogen has a net cooling effect on atmospheric temperatures. Their findings imply that reactive nitrogen cools the Earth’s atmosphere by -0.34 watts per square meter. It is estimated that in the last 275 years CO2 added to the atmosphere has warmed the atmosphere by an additional 2.17 watts per square meter. Gong’s et al paper did not specify over what time period their cooling effect occurred.

Along the same lines of inquiry, in a 2009 study University of Nevada Kurt Pregitzer found that the addition of nitrogen fertilizer increased carbon capture in forest soils.

Source: Gong et al, Global Net Climate Effects of Anthropogenic Reactive Nitrogen, Nature 2024. McGlashen, Can Nitrogen Be Used to Combat Climate Change, 2009 SciAm. Graphic: Vial of glowing Nitrogen. Licensed under Wiki Creative Commons.

The Great Fire of Constantinople:

25 July 2024 By in History, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

On 25 July 1660 a fire in Constantinople, now Istanbul, consumed two thirds of the city, burning down more than a quarter million homes and killing upwards to 40,000 people.

Professor Marc Baer of Tulane University wrote ‘that the fire began in a store that sold straw products outside the appropriately named Firewood Gate…The strong winds of Istanbul caused the fire to spread violently in all directions.’

Nasuh Pagazade Omer Bey stated in February of 1663, ‘Thousands of homes and households burned with fire. And in accordance with God’s eternal will, God changed the distinguishing marks of night and day by making the very dark night luminous with flames bearing sparks, and darkening the light-filled day with black smoke and soot.’

Source: The Great Fire…by Marc David Baer, Int. J. Middle East Studies, 2004. Graphic: The Great Fire of Constantinople, artist unknown.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

24 July 2024 By in Movies, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Furiosa, prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, documents the psychological development of Furiosa (Taylor-Joy) as she channels her hate and vengeance towards Dementus (Hemsworth), destroyer of her mother in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian tale of fiefdoms and control.

Furiosa finds peak vengeance against her antagonist around the 2 hour and 15-minute mark of the movie when Dementus, somewhat incidentally, asks her if she was able to ‘make it epic’. The question really is posed to you the viewer and the short answer would be no. The long answer is the movie is needlessly long but not as long as it seemed.

Genre:  Action – Adventure – Drama — Sci-Fi

Directed by: George Miller

Screenplay by: George Miller, Nico Lathouris

Music by:  Tom Holkenborg

Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke

Film Locations:  Australia, USA

ElsBob:  5.5-6.0/10

IMDb:  7.7/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  90/100

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  89/100

Metacritic Metascore:  79/100

Metacritic User Score:  7.3/10

Theaters: 23-24 May 2024

Streaming: 16 September 2022

Runtime: 148 minutes

Budget: $168 million

Box Office: $172.8 million

Source: IMDb. MetaCritic. Rotten Tomatoes. Graphic Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga movie poster, 2024, Copyright Warner Brothers.

Torrebruna Sangiovese 2019

23 July 2024 By in Red Wine Tags: , , Leave a comment

Sangiovese from Tuscany, Italy

Purchase Price: $11.99

Wilford Wong 90, Elsbob 91-92

ABV 13.5%

A ruby red to garnet color, aromas of darker fruits and cherries, medium to full bodied, more smooth than tannic, mostly dry with a tiny touch of sweetness, with a medium acidity. A versatile wine that will pair well with almost anything, but you will not go wrong with Italian pasta dishes.

Definitely let this wine breath for at least ½ hour to tone down its wild side.

Sangiovese, Italy’s most planted grape, translates to English as ‘the blood of Jove’ (aka Jupiter).

An excellent table wine at a very affordable price. Wines in this rating range have a medium price range of $25-35.

Twisters: The Album

22 July 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

‘Twisters: The Album’ was released on 19 July 2024, the same day as the movie premiered in the theaters. ‘The Album’ contains 29 high stepping and slow rolling country music tracks befitting a movie set in Oklahoma. This is the best original artist’s country soundtrack since the 1980 ‘Urban Cowboy’ which wasn’t exactly 100% country but close enough to make the point that it has been a long time since the genre has played front and center in a big budget movie.

Luke Combs’ song, ‘Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma’, first track on the album, was released as a single in May of 2024 prior to the release of the album and topped out on the US Hot Country charts at no. 4 and no. 23 on Billboard Hot 100.  The album contains additional singles from Miranda Lambert, Tucker Wetmore, Megan Moroney, and many, many more artists.

‘Twisters: The Album’ is an authentic ‘Feeling Country’.

Source: Apple Music.  Graphic: Album cover, Atlantic copyright.