Monthly Archives: September 2024

Friendlytown

9 September 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Steve Cropper of Booker T & the MGs and Stax fame, has released the rockin’ soulful blues album, ‘Friendlytown’ with his new band the Midnight Hour. This is his 120th album that he has either collaborated on or has issued as a solo artist.

The Midnight Hour band includes vocalist Roger C. Reale, keyboardist Eddie Gore, drummer Nioshi Jackson, and guitarist Billy Gibbons. Additionally, Felix Cavaliere, Brian May, Jon Tiven, and Simon Kirk join in on various songs.

At 82 years of age Cropper hasn’t lost a note and has found several new ones. The album is rich, tite, and one of his best.

Cropper, since the late 1950s has recorded with a veritable who’s who of rock, soul, and blues musicians, including John Lennon, Rod Stewart, B.B. King, and many, many others, garnering along way seven Grammy nominations, winning two, including the Best Rhythm and Blues Song, ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay’ with Otis Redding.

Trivia: ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay’ sold 4 million copies as a single, topped the Billboard Hot 100, became the sixth most performed song in 20th century, and the Rolling Stone ranked it as the 26th Greatest Song of All Time.

Source: AllMusic. Apple Music. Graphic: Album Cover, copyright Provogue Records.

Break Their Hearts

8 September 2024 By in Books Fiction, Novel Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

The spinster Miss Havisham (have-a-shame) in Dickens’, Great Expectations, is rejected at the altar, spending her remaining days alone in a decaying mansion wearing her wedding dress. She exists only to hate with a future reserved only for vengeance.

She adopts a girl, Estella, and raises her to emotionally cripple all interested men that may approach.  Miss Havisham whispers her prime dictate into Estella’s ear as the young lady entertains her hopeless – helpless suitor, Pip, ‘Break their hearts, my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!’

Trivia: Miss Havisham states to Pip towards the end of the book: ‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.’ This line is attributed to Irish playwright, Oliver Goldsmith who used it in his delightful 1773 play She Stoops to Conquer.

Source: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, 1861. Graphic: Miss Havisham, AI generated.

Journalism – Make it Up, Get Paid

7 September 2024 By in Journalism Tags: , , , Leave a comment

In an all too familiar case of journalistic malpractice, “Claas Relotius, a reporter and editor, [for Der Spiegel] falsified his articles on a grand scale and even invented characters, deceiving both readers and his colleagues,” wrote Germany’s Der Spiegel in 2018.

Claas Relotius, who won numerous awards for his work with Der Spiegel, falsified significant portions of articles for the news magazine. CNN reported that he admitted to ‘partial fabrications … [t]hat included making up dialogue and quotes and creating composite characters.’

This type of journalistic behavior seems to occur frequently, and it is likely more commonplace than consumers of news are led to believe. Layers and layers of fact checkers and editors never stop the flood tide of false narratives and fake news.

Source: ‘Germany’s Der Spiegel says star reporter Claas Relotius wrote fake stories…’ by Sherisse Pham, 2018, CNN. Graphic: Fake News, AI Generated.

Mycelium RoboDogs’ Psychedelic Dreams

6 September 2024 By in Trivia Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

With apologies to Philip K. Dick, Cornell researchers have developed a novel way to control their ‘biohybrid’ robots by utilizing mycelia’s natural electrical signals.

Rob Shepherd, head of Cornell’s Organic Robotics Lab says, ‘By growing mycelium into the electronics of a robot, we were able to allow the biohybrid machine to sense and respond to the environment.’

Choose your hallucination, ‘Blade Runner’ or ‘The Matrix’.

Source: Science Daily and Cornell University, September 2024. Graphic: Shrooms and Robodogs. DALL E 3

Hamlet Plays Conan

4 September 2024 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Prince Amleth, ‘The Northman’, losing his royal inheritance with the murder of his father the king, vows vengeance against his uncle, killer of his father, and kidnapper of his mother.

‘The Northman’ is loosely based on the Norse legend of Amleth, son of King Horwendil and his wife Gerutha. Horwendil was murdered by the king’s brother Feng, who then married Gerutha. Amleth feigned madness to retain his head and to plot his vengeance upon his uncle for murdering his father.

Amleth was Shakespeare’s inspiration for Hamlet in his most famous tragedy ‘Hamlet, Prince of Denmark’. Hamlet is the son of the late king of Denmark and the king’s wife Gertrude. He is also the nephew of the present king, Claudius who killed his father and took Hamlet’s mother as his wife. Hamlet is told by his father’s ghost that Claudius murdered him and that he must exact revenge for his death. The play climaxes where Hamlet, Gertrude, and Claudius all meet a tragic end.

Genre:  Action—Adventure—Fantasy—Historical—Mythological–Tragedy

Directed by: Robert Eggers

Screenplay by: Sjon, Robert Eggers

Music by:  Robin Carolan, Sebastian Gainsborough

Cast: Alexander Skarsgard, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy

Film Locations:  Ireland and Iceland

Els: 7.5/10

IMDb:  7.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  90

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  64

Metacritic Metascore: 82

Metacritic User Score:  7.2/10

Theaters: 22 April 2022

Runtime: 136 minutes

Budget:  $70-90 million

Worldwide Box Office:  $69.6 million

Source: IMDb. Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic. Viking.Style. Shakespear’s Tragedies, 1980. Graphic: Movie Poster, Focus Features.

J. Lohr Seven Oaks Cabernet Sauvignon 2021

3 September 2024 By in Red Wine Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Cabernet Sauvignon from Paso Robles, Central Coast, California.

79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Petite Sirah, 4% Petite Verdot, 3% Merlot, and 2% Malbec

Purchase Price: $17.99

James Suckling 91, Tasting Panel 91, ElsBob 90.

ABV 14%

Deep ruby trending purple in color, blackberries oak and vanilla aromas, full-bodied, dry, full tannins. An excellent wine to serve with beef cuts or just sipping it to unwind at the end of the workday.

A fine California wine under $20. A 90-point wine generally sells at a mean (average) price of $40.

9 Lives

2 September 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Koe Wetzel, a modern country outlaw not exactly in the mold of Waylon but possibly closer to the man he is named after, David Allen Coe, released his 6th studio album, ‘9 Lives’ in July of this year.  It’s an energetic, genre bending, fun album that refuses to follow any forged paths from his last effort: ‘Hell Paso’.

Discussing his new album with Apple Music he wants his listeners to critique the 13th tracks in their entirety. Hearing what he is as a musician and an artist, stating, ‘So, if they come away from listening to the entire record…be like, OK now we get it a little bit more. Maybe he is a decent artist, a decent musician.’

Decent artist, decent musician and yes, an outlaw. Affirmation (attempting confirmation?) from the chorus of the 13 track on ‘9 Lives’:

The last outlaw alive
The last of my kind
The last one who survived
I can’t believe I’m the last outlaw alive

Source: Apple Music. Graphic: Album cover copyright Columbia Music.

The Hand of God

1 September 2024 By in Art, Books Nonfiction Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Guillaume de Laubier and Jacques Bosser in their book ‘Sacred Spaces: The Awe-Inspiring Architecture of Churches and Cathedrals’ capture the artistic wonderment and engineering marvels that sprang from the last two millennia of Christian faith. From St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and back to Barcelona’s Basilica de la Sagrada Familia, the authors showcase the magnificent architectural monuments to Christ that are unsurpassed in our contemporary world of concrete and steel. The beauty presented in these ‘Sacred Spaces’ were constructed with flesh and blood but only God could have provided the inspiration and the will to create them.

The photo is the baldachin, or canopy, which hangs in the Barcelona Sagrada Familia. It represents the Holy Spirit covering the cross of Christ and hangs below the representation of the Father (not shown), which taken together represent the Holy Trinity of Christian faith.

Source: Sacred Spaces: The Awe-Inspiring Architecture of Churches and Cathedrals by Jacques Bosser and Guillaume de Laubier, 2018. Graphic: The Baldachin: Representation of the Holy Spirit at the Sagrada Familia by Blog Sagrada Familia, 2018.