Malbec from Uco Valley, Mendoza, Argentina
Purchase Price: $12.99
James Suckling 91, Robert Parker 90, ElsBob 90
ABV 14.5%
A dark violet color with aromas of black fruit and spices. A medium to full bodied dry wine, soft tannins and a medium finish. Will pair well with beef or lamb.
An excellent wine at half to a third the price you would pay for a comparably rated wine. This wine should easily last another 10 years in the bottle so stock up if you can find it under $13.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd has recently unveiled his 2024 follow-up, Vol. 2, to the acclaimed 2023 release, “Dirt on My Diamonds Vol. 1“.
Conceived at the Muscle Shoals’ Fame Studios, brought to life in L.A., the album offers seven new electric blues tracks, plus one cover, each featuring outstanding hooks, riffs, guitar solos, and lyrics that fans have come to expect from his music.
Just like in Vol.1, the horn section featuring Joe Sublett on sax and Mark Pender on trumpet infuses the band’s sound with a delightful, soulful funky mix. Stax couldn’t have done it better.
Continuing the tradition from Vol.1, which included a cover of Elton John’s rockin’ 1973 hit “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” KWS and the band leap six years beyond “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” to perform ZZ Top’s rollicking “She Loves My Automobile” from their 1979 album “Deguello”. Wonderful.
Trivia: The first hit record from Fame Studios was the 1961 smash “You Better Move On” by Arthur Alexander, which was later covered by the Rolling Stones on their 1964 EP, The Rolling Stones.
Source: Apple Music. AllMusic. Graphic: Kenny Wayne Shepard, Dirt on My Diamonds Vol.2, Official Lyric Video, Provogue and KWS Music, Inc.
T.H. Huxley, Darwin’s Bulldog, anatomist, and autodidact, reflecting upon time and matter, makes the humorous connection that, “It is very possible that atoms which once formed an integral part of the busy brain of Julius Caesar may now enter into the composition of Caesar, the housedog in an English homestead.”
Source: Elementary Physiology, T.H. Huxley, 1902. Graphic: English Sheepdog, AI generated.
Taibbi delivered a righteous and necessary speech on the need to preserve the First Amendment to the Constitution, in particular the right to free speech at a ‘Recue the Republic’ gathering in Washington D.C. on 29 September 2024.
Taibbi makes the pertinent point that the current government efforts to eliminate dis-or-misinformation from the public discourse is not the real goal but that “The endgame is getting us to forget we ever had anything to say.”
He continues that the writers of the constitution’s Bill of Rights were absolutist in how the First Amendment could be interpreted, stating: “[James] Madison [author of the First Amendment] famously eschewed the word toleration or tolerance when it came to religion and insisted on the words freedom or liberty instead. This became the basis for the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which in turn became the basis for the Bill of Rights. That’s why we don’t have “toleration of religion” or “toleration of speech.” We have freedom of speech.”
Read the entire speech, link below. It’s a quick read and entertaining to boot.
Source: My Speech in Washington: “Rescue the Republic” (racket.news). Graphic: First Amendment, Melissa Randall, LibreTexts.
Greedy People: A rookie cop and a partner from a B-List precinct, a pair that couldn’t direct traffic in a parking lot, cover up a killing to steal a million bucks. From getting rich to not getting caught, Greedy People takes enough twists to make Rick Gervais’ bent wit resemble the lines of a B-52 runway.
For all the unexpected turns and plot reversals the movie is entirely predictable, even the ending. Fortunately, by the time you tire of guessing, correctly, the next unforeseen development the movie is over. Watch it for a few laughs, competent acting, and the plot, although predictable, is solid.
Trivia: Patel played Mahir in the Sci-Fi movie Tenet. Mahir, a bit character in the movie, crashes a plane into the Freeport to create a distraction for the protagonist.
Genre: Comedy—Crime—Drama–Suspense
Directed by: Potsy Ponciroli
Screenplay by: Michael Vukadinovich
Music by: Jordan Lehning
Cast: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Joseph Gordon-Leitt
Film Locations: Southport, North Carolina, U.S.
ElsBob: 5.5/10
IMDb: 6.2/10
Rotten Tomatoes Critics: 58%
Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter: 56%
Metacritic Metascore: 45
Metacritic User Score: 6.2/10
Theaters: 23 August 2024
Runtime: 90 minutes
Source: IMDb. Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic. Graphic: Movie trailer and poster, copyright Lionsgate Films.
Cabernet Sauvignon from California
Purchase Price: $17.99
Wine Enthusiast 92, ElsBob 93
ABV 13.9%
Aromas of black fruit, a hint of vanilla, full-bodied, slightly tannic, dry, and a wonderful long finish. This wine will pair well with all meats and is also great on its own.
An excellent wine at about half the price you would expect to pay for a 92–93-point wine. Stock up on this wine if you can find it at this price.
The Black Keys, with their new 2024 album, Ohio Players, haven’t confused their listeners this much since the critical acclaimed 2014 experimental acid trip, Turn Blue. This current collection of genre twisting songs suggests that the band has gone past peak Black Keys and wants to take their music into a new direction.
Ok, go down a different path but maybe it would be useful to pick one compass point rather than all of them at once. The record flows with currents of Neil Young and Cinnamon Girl, Paul McCartney’s post Beatles touch of sonic wonder, Ennio Morricone backing up Clint Eastwood, rap sexual crudities, and thankfully a bunch of album saving signature Black Keys blues and soul.
A confusing album but throw out the rap and it’s a decent contribution to the band’s oeuvre, not their best effort but enjoyable.
Trivia: The album title, Ohio Players, is a hat tip to Auerbach and Carney’s Ohio roots along with a tribute to one of the best funk-R&B bands from the 70s.
Source: AllMusic. Apple Music. Graphic: The Black Keys – Don’t Let Me Go, from Ohio Players, Easy Eye Sound and Nonesuch.
Draughtsman, etcher, painter, Rembrandt van Rijn, fascinated with the expressive face, inclined to acting out different character roles, inserting himself into the crowds to witness his subjects, shaping his public persona through his art, uncertain in youth, self-assured by mid-life, reflective towards the end, it is believed, with scholars still counting, that he created 40 to 50 paintings, 31 or 32 etchings, and 7 drawings of himself over a period of 44 years.
It is believed to be a record for self-portraits by a renowned artist.
The curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, C.S. Ackley writes that: “The artist used himself as a cheap model, studying his contorted features in the mirror.”
A student of Rembrandt wrote in 1678 that a young budding artist should use a mirror to aid in the representation of the passions or emotions in order “to be at once performer and audience.”
To paraphrase the Delphic maxim: Know your art by studying yourself.
Source Rembrandt’s Journey by C.S. Ackley, 2003. ThoughtCo. 2019. Graphic: Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, Oil on Panel, 1629, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.
Jack Kelly, serial fabrication specialist, allowed USA Today to call him a reporter until 2004 when the newspaper grew tired of referring to Kelly as a journalist and fired him or somewhat more accurately, forced him to resign.
Kelly, a five-time Pulitzer nominee, in addition to fabricating stories also plagiarized material from paper’s competitors, conspired to mislead those investigating his work, filed unsubstantiated expense reports, and made-up events in a speech to Evangelical Press Association. He had no shame, and naturally he maintained his innocence. It was all simple and honest mistakes.
USA Today began an investigation into Kelly’s work after receiving an anonymous letter that questioned the accuracy of his articles.
Blake Morrison of USA Today who investigated the reporter’s work wrote, “Perhaps Kelley’s most egregious misdeed occurred in 2000, when he used a snapshot he took of a Cuban hotel worker to authenticate a story he made up about a woman who died fleeing Cuba by boat. The woman in the photo neither fled by boat nor died.”
Trivia: I was unable to locate a picture of Jack Kelly.
Source: USA Today, NBC, CBS.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman Emperor, soldier, stoic philosopher, stated in Book I of his Meditations that Plutarch’s nephew, Sextus taught him: “…life according to Nature, Dignity without pretense, solicitous consideration for friends, tolerance of amateurs and of those whose opinions have no ground in science.”
Marcus Aurelius, along with Alexander the Great are two rulers who came closest to Plato’s concept of a Philosopher-King. Plato believed that to rule justly and wisely required a thorough foundation in philosophical principles coupled with the skill to serve for the benefit of the state and the ruled rather than for personal gain.
Source: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Graphic: Bust of Aurelius extracted from Glyptothek Munich. Public Domain.
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