Saturday Sounds - Blackie and the Rodeo Kings - O Glory

Blackie and the Rodeo Kings are an unlikely success. The three musicians, Colin Linden, Stephen Fearing, and Tom Wilson, got together in 1997 to do a tribute album to the late and much-missed singer-songwriter, Willie P. Bennet. They thought the album would be a one-off but they liked playing together so much that they kept at it, and they became a successful and popular band.

Their latest album, O Glory, was released last week. It continues in the same vein as their wonderful live performances – a musical stew made up of folk, blues, rock, country, and gospel, seasoned with solid and occasionally stellar musicianship. 

If you ever get a chance to see them live, don't pass it up. Their records are good but their live performances are where they shine. 

The June Update from the OED

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the dictionary by which all others are judged. You won't find it in bookstores and it's awfully expensive to subscribe to, but your local library probably has it on their website.

It's constantly updated and they published a large set of updates in June with an explanatory article on the blog. If you're fascinated by words and how they evolve, you should have a look at it.

The latest update to the OED includes over 700 new entries and senses. These range alphabetically from the East African ahoi (a person or body of people given the right to cultivate a plot of land without payment) to zooarchaeological (of, relating to, or designating animal remains recovered from an archaeological site). Our new entries span more than a thousand years chronologically, from the obsolete adverb aninne (within, inside, into, first recorded in the Old English translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History in the early tenth century) to the early 2010s neologisms sportswash and sportswashing, referring to the use of sport or sporting events in promoting a positive public image for a country or organization, distracting from other activities considered to be unethical, illegal, or otherwise controversial.

 Among other things, this update reveals that the phrase cringe factor was first used by the late Clive James in a review of the British television game show The Krypton Factor when it first aired in 1977. As a standalone noun, cringe has been used colloquially to refer to acute embarrassment or awkwardness since at least 1984, while the corresponding adjective cringe (‘it was so cringe’) is recorded from 2001. A new entry for public service announcement traces this phrase back to a 1948 report on public service broadcasting and the running of non-commercial ‘plugs’ for community causes on U.S radio stations; more recent humorous, mock-formal use is represented by a 2007 twitter posting advising against drinking a popular brand of energy drink immediately after brushing your teeth because ‘it’s gross’. You can also find out which of two competing pieces of British rhyming slang for—ahem—‘drunk, intoxicated’, Brahms and Liszt and Mozart and Liszt, is recorded earliest.

Featured Links - July 11, 2022

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

• The Seeds of Political Violence Are Being Sown in Church. "The new insurrection is being organized, in a sanctuary near you."
• THE JACKPOT: How London Became A Concierge for Kleptocrats. "Novelist Cory Doctorow tracks Britain’s domestic scandals back to the capital’s reliance on laundered money from overseas, and the feasting of so many professions on the proceeds."
• ‘Frankly it blew my mind’: how Tron changed cinema – and predicted the future of tech. "From cyberspace to AI, Steven Lisberger’s 1982 sci-fi classic was way ahead of its time. The team behind it explain how they made a game-changer."
• Stress busting and smoking hot: the OED June 2022 update. "The latest update to the OED includes over 700 new entries and senses. These range alphabetically from the East African ahoi (a person or body of people given the right to cultivate a plot of land without payment) to zooarchaeological (of, relating to, or designating animal remains recovered from an archaeological site)."
• ‘It’s not going to be as sexy’: Boca Chica looks toward a SpaceX future less lofty than it’d hoped. The Cape may become the major SpaceX launch facility, with major effects on the south Texas economy.
• Microbes May Hold the Secret to Creating More Powerful Rocket Fuel. "An anti-fungal molecule produced by the Streptomyces bacteria could enable supercharged biofuels."

Photo of the Week - July 10, 2022

This rose is in our front yard. When we bought our house, there was a rose bush that produced huge, beautiful orangeish-pink flowers. After an especially heavy winter, it stopped blooming. My wife tried taking a cutting and getting it to regrow in a different spot. Finally, last year, it started to bloom again. We're glad to have it back as the roses are beautiful. This was taken with my Pixel 4a.

  

Saturday Sounds - Billy Strings with Trey Anastasio - June 29, 2022

Billy Strings is one of the most interesting new, younger musicians I've come across in a while. He's a ferociously talented bluegrass guitarist who incorporates elements of country, rock, and out-there jamming into his music. 

Here's part of a recent performance from New York where he is joined by Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio for a few songs. You may want to just listen to this one as the video is shot from the audience and is more than a bit wobbly. But the sound seems to be from a webcast feed and the music is wonderful.

A Collection of Free Online Tools

TinyWow is a website that offers a large collection of free, online tools for working with PDF, graphic, and text files. For example, for PDFs, there are tools to create, edit, and merge PDF files and to convert them to other formats like text and Word. There are similar tools for manipulating graphic and video files.

All tools are free and if you're worried about privacy, uploaded and generated files are deleted after 15 minutes. 

The only problem with the site is that there are so many tools, it may be hard to find exactly the one you need.  

A List of July SF, Fantasy, and Horror Novels

July looks like it's going to be a big month for science fiction, fantasy, and horror book releases. Gizmodo has a list of 56 new titles. I've looked through it and there's very little that appeals to me, given that about 90 percent of the books are fantasy and horror and many of those are continuations of series. 

There were a few that looked interesting.

• Weird Tales: Best of the Early Years 1923-25 edited by Jonathan Maberry and Justin Criado
• Upgrade by Blake Crouch
• Three Miles Down: A Novel of First Contact in the Tumultuous 1970s by Harry Turtledove

 

Movie and TV Reviews - June 2022

Short reviews of movies and TV shows we watched in June. Despite it being baseball season, we seem to have watched a lot of shows this month, probably because most of them only had a few episodes. 

Movies

• I Want You Back: A slightly better than average rom-com. (Amazon Prime)
• The Contractor: B-grade action flick. I watched it three weeks ago and I cannot remember anything about it. (Amazon Prime)
• Interceptor: The only reason to watch this is to watch a buff woman beat up on a bunch of bad guys. Don't even try to rationalize the plot or your brain will melt. (Netflix)
• Doctor Stange in the Multiverse of Madness: I am mad at myself for spending two hours watching this. I enjoyed the first Doctor Strange movie but this one is just an effects-heavy mess. 

TV Shows

• Bosch: Legacy. This season continues with Bosch being a private detective and his daughter a police trainee. If you liked the original series (I did), you'll like this. (Amazon Prime)
• Obi-Wan Kenobi: This should have been a 2-hour movie. It reinforced my dislike of most of the Star Wars stories. Trying to do character development in what is essentially a fairy tale just doesn't work. (Disney+)
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: It is very much a modern version of the original series without the darker elements that showed up in Discovery. So far it hasn't grabbed me. I do wish producers would stop trying to recreate the past and move on to something new. Written SF moved on a long time ago. 
• Stranger Things, season 4: I do hope this is the final season. The show has lost the charm of the first couple of seasons. (Netflix)
• Prehistoric Planet: A dead-on recreation of the classic nature films with David Attenborough and dinosaurs. What more could you ask for? (Apple+)
• London Kills, season 3: One of the better British police procedurals.  Almost as intense as Line of Duty. (Acorn TV)
• Fifty Shades of Green: A fast tour of the 50 best gardens in Britain featuring some truly beautiful and unique gardens. I wish it had been spread out over several episodes instead of crammed into an hour.
• Signora Volpe: A British spy takes a vacation in Italy and hijinks ensure. Worth watching for the gorgeous Umbrian scenery if nothing else. (Acorn TV)
• Martin Klunes: Islands of the Pacific. A three-episode travelogue conducted by the actor, Martin Klunes, star of Doc Martin and Manhunt. I enjoyed it a lot. I learned something about a part of the world I will probably never visit and it's gorgeous to look at. (Acorn TV)

Off for the Canada Day Weekend

Tomorrow is Canada Day up here in the Great White North. I'll be spending my time watching fireworks and barbecuing steaks. Nobody will be paying any attention to the internet over the weekend, given that Monday is also the July 4th holiday in the US.

So blogging will resume on Tuesday.

In the meantime, here are some flowers for you to admire.

 

We're Toast 25

This post is a collection of links that support my increasingly strong feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilization) is doomed. It is part of an ongoing series of posts.

• Planet Hunger: Inside the Global Food Crisis. "Putin — and greedy CEOs — are already putting 20 million people on the brink of starvation. If we don’t make big changes now, we will face mass food shortages."
• Greedflation: Why Your Grocery Bills Are Soaring. "Our food comes from a handful of giant corporations that see any crisis as a chance to boost profits."
• ‘The Fuse Has Been Blown,’ and the Doomsday Glacier Is Coming for Us All. 'New data suggests a massive collapse of the ice shelf in as little as five years. "We are dealing with an event that no human has ever witnessed,” says one scientist. “We have no analog for this”'
• With the end of Roe, the US edges closer and closer to civil war. "The question is no longer whether there will be a civil conflict in America. The question is how the sides will divide, and who will prevail."

Featured Links - June 28, 2022

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

• Astronomers Radically Reimagine the Making of the Planets. "Observations of faraway worlds have forced a near-total rewrite of the story of our solar system."
• Rarely Seen Paintings by J.R.R. Tolkien Portray a Lush ‘Lord of the Rings’ Landscape. "The Tolkien Estate recently published a trove of rare, unpublished art by the famed fantasy author on its website."
• Monkeypox Has Undergone “Accelerated Evolution”, Mutating At Unprecedented Rates. "The ongoing monkeypox outbreak is unprecedented. This research could help to explain why."
• Covid hasn’t given up all its secrets. Here are 6 mysteries experts hope to unravel. Two years into the pandemic, there is still a lot to learn about the virus.
• The 100 Most Popular Emojis Explained. "There are so many emojis, it can be difficult to know what they all mean. Here are the most popular emojis explained."
• State of CSS 2022. "Web styling features of today and tomorrow, as seen at Google IO 2022, plus some extras."
• America Is Sliding Into the Long Pandemic Defeat. "In the face of government inaction, the country’s best chance at keeping the crisis from spiraling relies on everyone to keep caring." Another essential read from Ed Yong.

2022 Locus Awards

The winners of the 2022 Locus Awards were announced last weekend. These awards are voted on by the readers and subscribers of Locus, the SFF genre's news magazine.

These are the awards in the various novel categories.

• SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL: A Desolation Called Peace, Arkady Martine (Tor; Tor UK)
• FANTASY NOVEL: Jade Legacy, Fonda Lee (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• HORROR NOVEL: My Heart Is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga; Titan)
• YOUNG ADULT NOVEL: Victories Greater Than Death, Charlie Jane Anders (Tor Teen; Titan)
• FIRST NOVEL: A Master of Djinn, P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom; Orbit UK)

A Master of Djinn also won the Nebula Award for Best Novel this year.

Photo of the Week - June 26, 2022

I saw this basket of geraniums on my walk Friday and was seriously tempted to grab it and take it home. I didn't but I did take this picture to enjoy later. Taken with my Pixel 4a. 

Saturday Sounds - John Mellencamp - Strictly a One-Eyed Jack

I've been listening to and enjoying John Mellencamp's music ever since his Johnny Cougar days. His concert at Maple Leaf Gardens on the Lonesome Jubilee tour was one of the first that Nancy and went to together and turned me into a lifetime fan. (His cover of Richard Thompson's "Shoot Out the Lights" was even darker and more intense than Thompson's version).

His latest album, Strictly a One-Eyed Jack, is solidly in the tradition of outcast Americana music. This New Yorker profile describes it as "blundering, bleak and engrossing", all of which is true. It isn't a happy album, but it's very listenable and fits the mood of our times. Springsteen fans should note that he performs on three songs, including the single, "Wasted Days". 

Public Domain Art from Artvee

If you're a regular gallery or museum goer, you may want to check out Artvee, a site for viewing and downloading public-domain art. You can browse by category (for example, landscapes), movement, culture, or artist, or view curated collections. The collection of NASA Visions of the Future posters is one that I especially liked.

Given that all the art is in the public domain, you won't find much by current or 20th-century artists, but there's certainly enough here to keep you browsing for hours.

Featured Links - June 20, 2022

For some time, I've been using Pocket and Pocket to Kindle to send long articles I want to read to my Kindle. I'm a few months behind on reading them but catching up. This week's Featured Links post collects some articles from late last year that I thought were still worth reading.

• Brian Herbert on Dune: 'My Father Could See Into the Future'. "Frank Herbert’s son is the keeper of the canon and the ultimate defender of his dad’s work."
• I Don't Know That I Would Even Call It Meth Anymore. "Different chemically than it was a decade ago, the drug is creating a wave of severe mental illness and worsening America’s homelessness problem."
• And In the End. "Fifty years ago, the Beatles went through rock’s most famous breakup. Inside the heartbreak, the brotherhood, and why the music still matters."
• The Expanse Authors Were Always Building Toward Leviathan Falls' World-Altering Ending. "James S.A. Corey duo Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck get spoilery about their biggest choices."
• Rothko at the Inauguration. "A story of America in three scams."
  
  

Photo of the Week - June 19, 2022

Here's a picture from my trip to the Sault a couple of weeks ago. It shows the shore opposite my sister's cottage on Goulais Bay, with a large wind farm on the top of the hills. I processed this picture in Adobe Lightroom to bring out the colours.

Fujifilm X-S10 with 16-80 F4 at 45 mm., 1/1600 second at F8, ISO 400, Velvia film simulation.

Saturday Sounds - Drive-By Truckers - Welcome 2 Club XIII

Today's music is the latest album from one of my favourite bands, the Drive-By Truckers. I've been listening to them for more than a decade, although I've never managed to see them live. Welcome 2 Club XIII is rather less political than their last but still has some powerful, intense songs. 

 

2021 Nebula Awards

The 2021 Nebula Awards were announced in May. They are voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (SFWA), the guild for SF and fantasy authors. These are the winners of the fiction awards.

• Best Novel: A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark
• Best Novella: "And What Can We Offer You Tonight" by Premee Mohamed
• Best Novelette: "O2 Arena" by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki
• Best Short Story: "Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather" by Sarah Pinsker

This page has a complete list of the 57 annual Nebula awards.

Movie and TV Reviews - May 2022

Short reviews of TV shows we watched in May.  Between baseball and a month filled with various family events, we didn't watch any movies.

TV Shows

• Outer Range: Think of it as Lost in Montana. I wish the season had been longer so the story could have had more of a resolution. I guess we'll have to wait for season 2. If it goes past that, I'll probably stop watching. (Amazon Prime)
• Nova: High-Risk High Rise. Watching this reinforced my intention never to live above the 10th floor in a high-rise. (PBS)
• Restoring Notre Dame. A documentary on the current state of the restoration of Notre Dame after the fire. It's quite fascinating, especially the segment about the stained glass windows. (BBC)
• Nova: Dinosaur Apocalypse. Several episodes featuring new discoveries about the demise of the dinosaurs. My inner 12-year-old loved it. (PBS)
• Professor T: Another British police procedural featuring an oddball profiler. In this case, he's played by Ben Miller who was one of the leads in Death in Paradise. I probably wouldn't have watched the whole season if it hadn't been for that, as Miller is a very good actor, although he was wasted on the somewhat formulaic plots. (Acorn TV)