Tuesday, October 8, 2024

World Show Business Exclusive on Old Song Lyric

Just saw Sting at the Brooklyn Paramount. Great show. One note: I think I heard new lyrics to "Wrapped Around Your Finger." He changed the lyric "servant is your master" to "servant has surpassed you." I can't find any confirmation for this except from my own ears. 

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Looks at Books: The Aurora Revelations by Michael F. Walker

A Ghoulish Tale of Aliens, Monstrosities, and Mad Science

Walker has crafted an entertaining novel of what-ifs, positing a unified theory of aliens, a 20th-century mad genius, and things that go bump in the night. A wise-cracking team of paranormal enthusiasts unearths a long-dormant mystery in a Texas cemetery, entering a hellscape of hillbilly horror and a monstrous mindscape of things to come (or will they?). Read it and find out. The paperback is a neat production, and I speak from several decades in New York publishing, trade and academic. The text is also very well edited.

https://www.amazon.com/Aurora-Revelations-Paranormal-Mystery-Novel/dp/B0D99JH15Z/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=


Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Reading the Bible

I’m still working through the Old Testament after reading the New Testament some years ago.

I keep a beautiful leather-bound of the New Revised Standard Version on the lamp table. The volume was given to me when I joined Marble.

On my Kindle phone app I read the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Great for train trips and waiting on long lines at Walgreens.

And because my eyes tire easily, I’ve also been listening to a great podcast on Spotify called Bible: Beginning to End, a straight reading from the New Living Translation with questions (but no answers) for thought after every chapter or so.
I used to think that reading the Bible was something I would do when I finished reading everything else important. Or watching everything on Netflix. Or when I was fully retired. But now that I’m immersed in it, I wish I had done it sooner. My father told me that there is something on every page of the Bible that is good for you. He was right.

Monday, February 12, 2024

The Great Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart, who returns to the Daily Show tonight, is the Sesame Street of smart politics. If Sesame Street worked as it was supposed to in 1969, we should be on our second or third generation of people who are good at reading and understand math. That didn't happen. All reading and math scores are down compared to 1969. The smart kids picked up the learning, and the rest watched it for the shiny colors and pretty songs. Stewart had to be disappointed that his years of insightful comedy still led up to Trump winning. He's fact-preaching to the choir and the few fence sitters that are left. The alternate reality folks can't be swayed.