“I feel not a whit sad at the fact of death, but massively sad at leaving friends behind, among who you count dearly. I have always know what my true feelings are by whatever line of poetry rises unbidden to my mind on any occasion; to my genuine happiness, this time was a line from Herbert’s ‘Evensong,’ in which God (always in Herbert, more like Jesus than Jehovah), says to the poet, ‘ Henceforth repose; your work is done.'” The great poetry critic Helen Vendler died April 23, 2024 at the age of 93. Over the years, I’ve read several of Vendler’s books on poetry and always came away delighted ..read more

An impressive group of singers showed up for this celebration of Bob Dylan. “The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration is a live double-album release in recognition of Bob Dylan’s 30 years as a recording artist. Recorded on October 16, 1992, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, it captures most of the concert, which featured many artists performing classic Dylan songs, before ending with three songs from Dylan himself. The house band for the show were the surviving members of Booker T. & the M.G.’s: Booker T. Jones on organ, Donald “Duck ..read more

Playboy’s Stories of the Sinister & Strange (1969) joins the dozen or so Playboy Press paperbacks I’ve collected over the years. The most famous story in this anthology is Kurt Vonnegut’s “Welcome to the Monkey House” set in the Future when the population of the Earth is 17 billion people. I also liked Irwin Shaw’s “The Mannichon Solution” where a scientist makes a Big Discovery, but is co-opted by other scientists. My favorite story is Gerald Kersh’s classic “Somewhere Not Far From Here” where a group of men wage war against invaders. Combat goes not get more graphic than this tale! For ..read more

I’ve only watched one episode of Star Wars: Tales of the Empire but what becomes apparent is violence and death are a big part of this series. Star Wars: Tales of the Empire is an animated six-episode journey into the malevolent Galactic Empire. The tales are told by two warriors on divergent paths, set during different eras. In the first episode, young Morgan Elsbeth loses her mother in a battle with Imperial battle droids. Morgan navigates the expanding Imperial worlds toward a path of vengeance for the murder of her mother. Meanwhile, former Jedi Barriss Offee does what she must to survive ..read more

I’ve read all the Sherlock Holmes stories, the same with Edgar Allan Poe, and Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple mysteries. So I was a sucker for James Patterson and Brian Sitts’s Holmes Marple & Poe. And 118 chapters later, I’m here to warn you that very little of the greatest Holmes, Marple, and Poe show up in this novel. Who are the Holmes, the Marple, and the Poe operating together in this book? We don’t find out. What we do find out is that their original names have been deliberately obscured and their Past thoroughly buried. We are given hints that the trio shared a history of military a ..read more

Roast Collection: Variety Pack Cup Coffee Pods: Veranda Blend, Breakfast Blend, House Blend, Caffee Verona  CLASSIC FAVORITES: Variety Pack cup Coffee Pods: Veranda Blend, Caramel, Vanilla, and Toasted Coconut Mocha Starbucks has introduced these Variety Packs of K-Cups recently. I bought these at BJ’s Warehouse for about $30 (with a coupon). If you like Starbucks coffee, this is a good way to sample various Starbucks coffee offerings. What’s your favorite coffee ..read more

The Fall Guy, loosely based on the 1980s TV series that starred Lee Majors, is a mash-up of a Rom-Com with an Action Movie. Director David Leitch–once a stunt man before going behind the camera–and Screenwriter Drew Pearce produce a movie that glorifies those talented people doing the stunts in movies (and argues there should be an Oscar to recognize them). The Fall Guy features dozens of eye-popping stunts and plenty of explosions. There’s real chemistry between stunt man Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) and talented camera operator Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). Machiavellian movie producer Gail Mey ..read more

I read several books by John Bellairs to my kids before they became teenagers. Bellairs books featured youngsters not afraid to take some risks to solve mysteries that contained Supernatural elements. Of the several series Bellairs wrote, my favorite was the Lewis Barnavelt series. Lewis is a smart but chubby boy who gets picked on at school. His parents are dead and Lewis has been taken in by his uncle, Jonathan Barnavelt, a wizard. Needless to say, Lewis and his uncle stumble over all kinds of supernatural happenings. The first three titles in the Lewis Barnavelt series were written by  ..read more

Cat Power (aka, Charlyn Marie “Chan” Marshall) produced two very different albums of cover songs. Back in 2000, she released The Covers Record with 12 songs performed with minimalist precision. Trust me: you’ve never heard “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” performed this way! My favorite song on The Covers Record is the “Sea of Love.” In 2022, Cat Power brought out another album of covers. This time she’s backed by a band. My favorite song on Covers is an early Jackson Browne song–I first heard it on Nico’s Chelsea Girl album in 1967. There’s plenty of variety on Covers with song ..read more

Dead Boy Detectives is an 8-episode series on Netflix.  Introduced in the pages of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, a ghost boy from the 1910s becomes best friends with a ghost boy from the 1990s and together they decided to solve mysteries. Dead Boy Detectives are the late Edwin (George Rexstrew) and Charles (Jayden Revri)–both murdered at an English boys school–who run a supernatural detective agency where they solve the mysteries of ghosts, demons, and other spooky creatures. The ghost boys team up with the amnesiatic psychic Crystal (Kassius Nelson) after exorcizing a demon ..read more