Author Archives: laurn larson

Stax Country:

11 November 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

The words Stax and country, seldom found in the vicinity of each other, come together for an emotional tour de force of soulful ballads, evoking the passions of love, heartache, and life like an old photo album that chronicles a simpler, happier time.

Jared Boyd, writing for Stax, comments that “Stax Country illuminates these varied voices along a Venn diagram of soul and country, underscoring the label’s ambition to break new ground… This compilation is a testament to Stax’s pioneering spirit and support for musical diversity, highlighting an era when soulful storytelling found common ground with country’s honesty and zeal.“

Originally released in 2017, the album was remastered and reissued in October 2024 with sound quality as crisp and clear as a nightingale’s melody waking you on a Saturday morning. Stax excellence shines through in this compilation of lost gems.

Source: Stax. Graphic: Album Cover with Sweet Country Music by Becki Bluefield.

Soulless

8 November 2024 By in Science Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

MIT researchers found that Large Language Models (LLMs), although able to output impressive results without internal understanding of the data they manipulate, were unable to cope with small modifications to their data sets.

The researchers discovered that an LLM could provide correct driving directions in New York City while lacking an accurate internal map of the city. When they took a detailed look under the LLM’s hood, they saw a map of NYC that included many nonexistent streets superimposed on the real grid. Despite this poor understanding of actual streets, the model could still provide perfect directions for navigating the city—a fascinating “generative garbage within, Michelangelo out” concept.

In a further twist, when the researchers closed off a few actual streets, the LLM’s performance degraded rapidly because it was still relying on the nonexistent streets and was unable to adapt to the changes.

Source: MIT. “Despite Its Impressive Output, Generative AI Doesn’t Have a Coherent Understanding of the World.” ScienceDaily, 2024.  Graphic: AI istock.

FDR Wins 4th Term

7 November 2024 By in History, Politics, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

On Tuesday, 7 November 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt won his fourth term as President of the United States, defeating Republican Thomas E. Dewey of New York.

Few states in the 1944 election had a primary system in place to vote for party nominees, instead choosing delegates to the national nominating convention through party caucuses or state conventions. The real job of selecting the party’s nominees occurred at the national conventions with little to no input from the voting public.

Democrats, concerned that Roosevelt might not live to complete his term, replaced the sitting left-wing and economically illiterate Vice President Henry A. Wallace with the Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman.

Roosevelt died on 12 April 1945, less than three months into his new term, with Truman assuming the presidency that same day.

Truman ordered the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, less than six months into his presidency, proving that holding the highest office in the land is fraught with uncertainty and requires unimaginable determination and strength.

Graphic: Electoral College Results for the 1944 Presidential Election.

No Art–No Merit

6 November 2024 By in Movies, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The Substance: Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), an ageing actor seeking to revive her career and her looks, along with reclaiming her fans, chooses poorly. Excessive gore and asininities ensue.

The movie explores themes of lost youth, the loneliness of fan forgetfulness, and mortality. The film attempts to find something new to say in re-imaging the 1992 movie: ‘Death Becomes Her’ starring Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep, and Bruce Willis; but comes up with naught—nothing approaching sense or sensibility—just blood and guts substituting for substance.

Genre: Black Humor–Horror

Directed by: Corallie Fargeat

Screenplay by: Corallie Fargeat

Music by: Raffertie

Cast: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid

Film Location: France

ElsBob: 3.0/10

IMDb: 7.5/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics: 90%

Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter: 74%

Metacritic Metascore: 78%

Metacritic User Score: 7.4/10

Theaters: 20 September 2024

Runtime: 141 minutes

Budget: $17.5 million

Box Office: $43.3 million

Source: Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, Metacritic.Graphic: The Substance Movie Poster, copyright Mubi.

Claret to Bordeaux

5 November 2024 By in History, Red Wine, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Claret is an English term for Bordeaux wines that traces its origins back to 16th century. The name derives from the French word “clairet,” which described a lighter, more rosé-like style from the Bordeaux region.

Originally, the grapes used to make this wine were Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc, similar to today’s right-bank Bordeaux. The left bank added Malbec, Petit Verdot, and Carménère to the mix.

By the 17th and 18th centuries, clarets evolved, through better maceration, aging, and blending techniques, into a darker, full-bodied wine we would recognize today as a Bordeaux. It became a major export to England and the world.

Trivia: Charles Dickens in ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’, ‘The Pickwick Papers’, and ‘Great Expectations’; Wilkie Collins in ‘The Moonstone’; Anthony Trollope in ‘The Belton Estate’; William Thackeray in ‘Vanity Fair’; and George Eliot in ‘Middlemarch’ all mention the drinking of claret, usually at their dinners.

In these novels the claret was diluted with water to reduce the alcohol content, making it more palatable and easier to drink over long meals or gatherings and to stretch the supply.

Source: Wine Spectator. Decanter. Graphic: Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881. Public Domain.

You Still Got Me

4 November 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Beth Hart’s 11th solo studio album, the October 2024 release of ‘You Still Got Me’, follows up her 2022 Led Zeppelin tribute album with 11 original songs spanning the genres of blues, rock, pop, ballads, a touch of jazz, and a delightful tongue-in-cheek country nod to Johnny Cash. All songs are written by her, with a little help from Rune Westberg and Glen Burtnik.

While this may not be her best work—those honors go to her collaborations with the incomparable guitarist Joe Bonamassa—listening to the bluesy evolution of her throaty voice is a joy to be cherished and treasured; an album that captures the pure magic that is Beth Hart.

Source: AllMusic. Rock & Roll Muse with Martine Ehrenclou. Graphic: Album Cover and ‘Wanna Be Big Bad Johnny Cash, Provogue, Mascot, October 2024.

Love and Happiness

3 November 2024 By in Novel, Philosophy Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

The opening line to Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” is frequently misunderstood to mean that all unhappy families are sadly similar in that negative dynamics are always present.

What Tolstoy and the original French proverb convey is that unhappy families suffer from unique dysfunctions, such as violence, substance abuse, or incest, while happy families have avoided these destructive traits.

In statistics, this concept is known as the ‘Anna Karenina Principle‘. It states that for an endeavor to be successful, every possible deficiency must be avoided, whereas for it to be unsuccessful, only one negative factor needs to be present.

A similar proverb from 16th or 17th-century Europe, “One bad apple spoils the whole barrel,” began as practical advice to apple farmers and evolved to describe how one negative influence can affect an entire group or family.

Russian authors like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky tend not to write about happy families because, in their view, there is no story, no moral, and no psychological depth without pain and suffering.

English author W. Somerset Maugham brought this idea back into the limelight with a twist when he wrote: “They say that happy people have no history, and certainly a happy love has none. They did nothing all day long and yet the days seemed all too short.”

There is no shame in happiness; life does not need drama or conflict to be meaningful.

Source: Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. Rain and Other South Sea Stories by W. S. Maugham. Graphic: Apple by Tembhekar. Public Domain.

Journalism—CNN’s Sycophants for Saddam Hussein 2003

2 November 2024 By in History, Journalism Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

CNN’s news chief in 2003, Eason Jordan, admitted that the network ignored and suppressed Saddam Hussein’s mass killings of his citizens and other crimes against humanity, to keep their access to the Iraqi thug. Jordan said that telling the truth likely would have meant closing their Baghdad bureau. Franklin Foer of the New Republic wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “CNN could have abandoned Baghdad. Not only would they have stopped recycling lies, they could have focused more intently on obtaining the truth about Saddam.”

CNN lied; Iraqis died.

Human Rights Watch has estimated that 250,000 to 290,000 Iraqis were presumed killed under Saddam.

Eason Jordan resigned from CNN in 2005. It wasn’t possible to discover why he wasn’t fired in 2003 for his efforts to aid Saddam Hussein.

Source: The Washington Post. HRW 2003. Franklin Foer, Wall Street Journal 2003.   Graphic: Iraqi Victims Found in a Mass Grave killed under Saddam’s Rule, GWB Whitehouse Archives, 2003.

Seeking God

31 October 2024 By in Philosophy, Physics, Science, Space Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

95% of the universe is a mystery. About 68% is dark energy, which is believed to drive the accelerated expansion of the universe, though its exact nature is unknown. 27% is dark matter, which holds galaxies together and is believed to consist of one or more massive, yet unknown, particles.

Science Daily reports that researchers at the University of Michigan and five other institutions “have strengthened the case that matter becomes dark energy when massive stars collapse and become black holes.” This suggests that the universe’s expansion may be partly explained by the expansion of black holes through cosmological coupling. It also implies that black holes can gain mass without consuming matter, directly challenging the Standard Model of particle physics.

This either leads to the Big Freeze—infinite expansion through not quite infinite time—or the Big Crunch, where gravity eventually says ‘Enough!’ and collapses everything back into an infinitesimal point.

To sum up, we may or may not understand 5% of the universe, while the remaining 95% aligns with Socrates’ axiom from 6th century Greece—we essentially know nothing.

Source: University of Michigan. “Evidence Mounts for Dark Energy from Black Holes.” Science Daily. 2024. Graphic: Black Hole.

A Twisted and Twisty Tale:

30 October 2024 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Strange Darling: A film portraying a one-night stand of innocent fun and desire in the same bloody vein as craving a joyride in a van full of Stephen King clowns. Misdirection, mayhem, and murder—oh my.

The movie’s story unravels in a non-linear manner, much the same as Tarantino’s ‘The Hateful Eight’, creating mystery and suspense by concealing the true nature of the characters and the plot until later in the film.

It has been noted that the Coen’s ‘No Country for Old Men’ came the closest to featuring the personality of a true psychopath: the irredeemable Anton Chigurh as played by Javier Badem. The antagonist in ‘Strange Darling’ easily moves Chigurh to a distant second place.

Trivia: The opening credits and Mollner hint, during interviews, that the movie may be based on actual events but there are no known serial killer incidents to support this. Mollner also comments that “…to me, it’s all real—inside my head and inside my heart.” Yikes.

Trivia II: The song ‘Love Hurts’ by Bryant and Bryant, is prominently played in the movie and was also featured in Rob Zombie’s remake of ‘Halloween’ and ‘Halloween II’.

Genre: Horror—Mystery–Suspense–Thriller

Directed by: JT Mollner

Screenplay by: JT Mollner

Music by: Craig DeLeon

Cast: Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner

Film Locations: Oregon, USA

ElsBob: 7.0/10

IMDb: 7.2/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics: 95%

Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter: 85%

Metacritic Metascore: 80%

Metacritic User Score: 6.9/10

Theaters: 23 August 2024

Runtime: 96 minutes  

Budget: $4-10 million

Box Office: $3.8 million

Source: Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, Metacritic. Graphic: ‘Strange Darling’ Poster and Trailer, Miramax