My Two Blessings

  September 1 :  I currently have Steve Berry’s 4th book in his Cotton Malone series up next – Thc Charlemagne Pursuit. “As a child, former Justice Department agent Cotton Malone was told that his father died in a submarine disaster in the North Atlantic. But what he now learns stuns him: His father’s sub was a secret nuclear vessel lost on a highly classified mission beneath the ice shelves of Antarctica. Twin sisters Dorothea Lindauer and Christl Falk are also determined to find out what became of their father, who died on the same submarine–and they know something Malone doesn’t: Inspired by strange clues discovered in Charlemagne’s tomb, the Nazis explored Antarctica before the Americans. Now Malone discovers that cryptic journals penned in “the language of heaven,” conundrums posed by an ancient historian, and his father’s ill-fated voyage are all tied to a revelation of immense consequence for humankind. As Malone embarks on a dangerous quest with the sisters, he will fi...

  I was introduced to the form of Oulipo in a writing class years ago and found it quite intriguing. Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle or OULIPO was founded by French Mathematician Francois de Lionnais and writer Raymond Queneau in 1960. Basically it is introducing a constraint such as not using a certain letter, and other oddities, while writing a poem, creating a short story, or a lipogram. A few years back I experimented with creating an OULIPO using Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken which took an interesting turn. I tried the N + 7 route which is to replace the major nouns with another noun which is the 7th one below it in the dictionary. However the first line ending up being Two Robbers diverged in a Women Hmmm! Once I quit laughing, I got the bright idea to take book titles and transform them into a story, but got as far as a weird poem. Figured I’d better stick to reading books by authors who use the technique. Italo Calvino is one author who liked to experiment with his s...

 vs.    Greetings, fellow historians. We're going to do something different today with this special review as we pit two movies against one another. 1989's FAT MAN AND LITTLE BOY starring Paul Newman and 2023's OPPENHEIMER by Christopher Nolan starring Cilian Murphy. For a little explanation, both movies are about the creation of the atomic bomb during the war, and the latter is also about Doctor Robert J. Oppenheimer's life during, before, and after the bomb was created. The former, Fat Man and Little Boy, is very PG-13, while Oppenheimer is R-rated for heavy profanity and instances of nudity/sex. Okay, so, which movie is the best? Let us start with the 1989 film. Without delay, here we go, and I hope I don't upset the OPPENHEIMER fans. Running at 2 hours and 7 minutes, FAT MAN & LITTLE BOY is straightforward as it covers Leslie Groves and his group's efforts on the Manhattan Project from 1942 to 1945. Now, Paul Newman is a stunning actor, and he was well-c...

  Eh, what's up, Doc? Yep, it's me, and I just recently saw SPACE JAM (1996) with my parents. Yup, THE Space Jam, starrin' Michael Jordan in a comical cartoony film with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and a slew of cartoony characters you know and love. It was a good film, very fun too. For it's time, the CGI looks gorgeous, and the animation for the toon world as well as the characters is real polished. Oh, and Lola Rabbit is cute, not going to lie. I like Wayne Knight's character as well, and it was funny that, at one point, Bill Murray got mistaken for Dan Aykroyd. You can't go wrong with such a light-hearted 90s movie. That's all I got to say for now. See you. -James M

  Face front, true believers.  It's your old friend, and I'm here with a review of the Spider-Man show that ran from 1994 to 1998. Recently, me and dad finished watching the show, and it was gorgeous for it's time. You can never go wrong with a fun superhero cartoon about the adventures and heroics of Peter Parker as Spider-Man, voiced by Christopher Daniel Barnes. The show ran for five seasons before it was cancelled after the Spider-Wars two parter, which ended up serving as the grand finale to the overall show, and it was the last time anyone saw this version of Peter before he made a triumphant return in X-Men 97. Yeah, this show shares a universe with the other 90s Marvel shows such as Iron Man, Fantastic Four, and the X-Men, basically the original Marvel Cinematic Universe before 2008's Iron Man. Okay, quick little summary of the series.  After getting bit by a radioactive spider and losing Uncle Ben when someone broke into the house, Peter becomes the superhero S...