I was listening to 1960s music last week and these two compilation CDs stood out. Ladies of the 60s starts off with Marcie Blane’s “Bobby’s Girl,” a song I haven’t heard in 50 years. While Ladies of the 60s includes familiar songs like Petula Clark’s “Downtown” and Betty Everett’s “The Scoop Scoop Song (It’s In His Kiss),” there are several obscure songs that I haven’t heard in decades. When’s the last time you’ve heard “Popsicles & Icicles” by the Murmaids? Or Linda Scott’s “I’ve Told Every Little Star”? Originals: Still the Greatest, Volume 11 1960-1962 is a K-Tel product (remember them ..read more

Back in 2017 I reviewed James Blish’s The Star Trek Reader (you can read my review here). I just happened to run across Blish’s The Star Trek Reader II at a recent Library Book Sale and picked it up for a buck. While I prefer the previous The Star Trek Reader, this volume collects the stories from Star Trek 1, Star Trek 4, and Star Trek 9 (there were 12 paperback volumes of stories based on Star Trek scripts and four hardcover The Star Trek Readers). These omnibus editions are handy, but I rarely see them any more. Are you a Star Trek fan? Do you have a favorite episode? GRADE: B TABLE OF CON ..read more

I’ll watch anything with Gillian Anderson in it. This Netflix film is a docudrama about the BBC’s Newsnight team scoring a sensationally revealing 2019 interview with Prince Andrew, Duke of York (Rufus Sewell), about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein…and underaged girls. The events that led up to the unusual royal interview conducted by Newsnight anchor Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) are seen through the actions of show booker, Sam McAlister (Billy Piper), who manages to convince Prince Andrew (aka, “Randy Andy) that an interview broadcast nationally might better his ..read more

” I’ll say it again—it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!” Matthew 19:24  Presently, there are 2,781 billionaires in the world worth $14.2 trillion in aggregate, up by $2 trillion from 2023. A total of 137 individuals became billionaires for the first time with an accumulated wealth of $291.5 billion in 2023. Expect all those numbers to rise. Guido Alfani is a Professor of Economic History at Boccon University, Milan. In As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West, Alfani takes the reader on a gui ..read more

Diane and I traveled to Sheas Performing Arts Center to see Mamma Mia!: The Musical. This the 6th time I’ve seen Mamma Mia! : The Musical. I first saw it in Toronto in 2002. Over 65 million people have seen Mamma Mia! : The Musical and it has set the record for premiering in more cities faster than any other musical in history. The first city to produce the show after London was Toronto, where it ran from May 23, 2000, to May 22, 2005. Now touring companies like the one that just came to Buffalo travel all around the country putting on this delightful show. As many of you know, ABBA was ..read more

The mis-named THE PIANO GUYS –one guy plays the cello (Steven Sharp Nelson) and one guy plays the piano (Jon Schmidt)–started their 2024 Tour in Buffalo and guess who was there? Yes, Diane wanted to see (and hear) these guys even after I gave her a PIANO GUYS CD to listen to. THE PIANO GUYS have been together for 30 years and have played Buffalo in the past. I slowly warmed to THE PIANO GUYS after listening to some very flashy piano and cello playing. I liked the mix of classic and contemporary music mashups. The videos accompanying some of the songs were distracting (for me) and the audience ..read more

Garry Wills is best known for Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America. But back in 2010, Wills published Bomb Power. With the attack on Israel less than a week ago, when Iran fired 16 tons of ordinance in the form of drones and missiles, what Wills had to say about bombs and power seemed very pertinent for our times. For the nitty-gritty aspects of the development of the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer lays it all out. But Wills is more interested in “Atomic Politics” where only three people in the U.S. Government actually knew about the Manhattan Project. And that secrecy continues to ..read more

I was a big fan of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young back in the 1970s and 1980s. But somehow I missed American Dream which showed up in record stores (remember them?) at the end of the Eighties. One of the reasons I missed this album was it isn’t very good. Why did CSNY put out a mediocre album. I went down the Internet Rabbit Hole and found some of the reasons why American Dream sucked: “American Dream is the fifth studio album by Crosby, Stills & Nash, and their second with Neil Young. Released in 1988 on Atlantic Records, it peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard&nb ..read more

Having a 3-year-old in our house for a few days during the run-up to the Solar Eclipse completely changed our TV viewing habits. My niece from Virginia’s daughter, Madi, loves Disney+ and especially loves the animated musical movie, Wish. Wish was in the movie theaters in November 2023, Although Wish earned $254 million at the Box Office, it was considered a flop since it cost $200 million to make. Reviews were mixed. Wish is a story of a 17-year-old girl named Asha (Ariana DeBose) who lives in the magical Kingdom of Rosas. Asha makes a passionate plea to the stars in a moment of need. This r ..read more

COVER ARTWORK BY MARTIN STIFF The seventh mystery in the Vinyl Detective series finds our narrator and his Special Forces trained lover, Nevada, hired to find Lambert Ramkin, a quirky but famous performer of 1990s techno and ambient music. Ramkin was the leader of Imperium Dart, a group of three women and himself who are now legends in the musical genre. The search leads from Ramkin’s palatial home in Kent to various vinyl sales sites across England (Ramkin collects vinyl records). John Fowles’ 1965 novel of bending Reality, The Magus, factors into Noise Floor as strange pranks (I liked the Ti ..read more