Well, in fact, Dunkirk (above) copped three Oscars, but all in the non-glamorous “technical” categories, while critical fave raves The Disaster Artist (one nomination only!), War for the Planet of the Apes (likewise!), The Post (two), and Baby Driver (three, but only “technicals”) were shut out entirely! Yeah, I guess no one cares about egomaniacs…
Author: Alan Vanneman
You know who I feel sorry for? Karen McDougal, that’s who I feel sorry for.
Remember Karen McDougal? She used to be big. Well, biggish. Well, on the road to biggish, definitely, when it was “revealed” a couple of weeks ago in America’s bible of titillation, the New Yorker, that the 1998 Playmate of the Year had an affair with a married Donald Trump back in the day and had…
Forward!
Okay, it’s National Review week at Literature R Us. I’m bouncing this post off a nice review by NR’s Kyle Sammin of Brit historian David Cannadine’s new book, Victorious Century, The United Kingdom 1809 – 1906. I’ve got Victorious Century already loaded on my ebook, but my backlog is pretty massive, so I won’t be…
The National Review, not always without honor
I read the National Review to find out what the opposition is up to, and it’s usually no good, but once in a while someone comes through with a piece that’s not only “not bad” but actually impressive. Such is the case with David French’s recent article, “The Schiff Memo Undermines Republican Claims of FISA…
Lana Cencic & Flip Philipp—”Four in One”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrdTRP3Q738 Lana Cencic, turning in a very boppy vocal, accompanied by Flip Philipp, vibes, Thomas Stempkowski, bass, and Wolfgang Rainer, drums. Nice! Appearing at Joe Zawinul`s Birdland, Vienna, in July 2006. Posted by mvojin. Need more Monk? Yes, you do. Go to Mostly Monk and continue your education.
The Snake at the Table
A month ago, thoughtful conservative Ross Douthat wrote a column, “The Necessity of Stephen Miller”, in which he argued that if liberals want a deal on immigration, they’re going to have to allow White House dude Stephen Miller a place at the table. Yes, Ross acknowledges, El Stevo has views on immigration that are at…
Too good to be true
There’s a good deal of yammering going on these days about the “failures” of liberalism, all of it too trivial for comment, to the point that it’s almost too convenient to learn, via the Washington Post’s William Martin, on the occasion of the death of 99-year-old über evangelist/never home dad Billy Graham, that three of…
The New Yorker fucks up
Thomas Meany has an article on German wunderdude Peter Sloterdijk, who knocks out thousand-page treatises on anything from the nature of being to the nature of shit. “This profligacy makes Sloterdijk hard to pin down,” sighs Meany. Is Sloterdijk wasteful and extravagant or just prolific, Tom? I know that “prolificness” is not an exciting word…
Paging Dr. Yeats! Paging Dr. Yeats!
Some time ago, I got so tired of reading about things “slouching towards Bethlehem”, or at least slouching somewheres, that I took upon myself to announce that no one, with the exception of Huckleberry Finn, would be allowed to use that verb, at once so affectedly literary and so uncouth that the poor word was…
Wadada Leo Smith—”Crepuscule with Nellie”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHLtky5Gejk Sorry, no video, just a recording of an 84-year-old man playing Monk on unaccompanied trumpet, from Smith’s new album, Solo: Reflections and Meditations on Monk. Sound a bit austere? Well, maybe. Is his technique less than it was? Yes. Is the full album ever anything less than exceptional? No. Is it for everybody? No,…