Cross (2024) - 3.5 / 5 Fan Boys
I was first introduced to Aldis Hodge (the actor who plays Alex Cross) when he was on Leverage. He's come a long way as an actor and he does a good job as the lead on this show. All through the first season his best friend looked familiar but it wasn't until the season finale that I finally figured out who he was: Isaiah Mustafa, aka the guy from Old Spice commercials.
The show, overall, is decent. We enjoyed it. I had some concerns for how it was going to end, but it landed in a way I enjoyed.
We'll be looking forward to a second season.
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Red One (2024) - 4 out of 5 Hot Wheels Cars
You get exactly what's on the tin with this one. It's a silly action movie around rescuing J. K. Simmons as Santa Claus. Katie and I went to see it to get out of our cold dark house and it was a very enjoyable time.
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Training Ground by Martin Dugard
A few months ago I saw a video on YouTube which was examining the inherent geographical advantages that the USA has. And, from what it covered, it talked about how much of what was once Mexico's most arable and verdant land was lost to the US during the Mexican-American war.
Now, I know about the war in the very broad strokes, but I didn't really have a strong sense of it. So, I went looking for some books to read on the topic and eventually landed on Training Ground by Dugard, as I thought the framing of the war as also a place that many of the notable names from the Civil War was interesting.
Here's the blurb on Amazon:
For four years during the Civil War, Generals Grant and Lee clashed as bitter enemies in a war that bloodied and scorched the American landscape. Yet in an earlier time, they had worn the same uniform and fought together.
In The Training Ground, acclaimed historian Martin Dugard presents the saga of how, two decades before the Civil War, a group of West Point graduates—including Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and William Tecumseh Sherman—fought together as brothers. Drawing on a range of primary sources and original research, Dugard paints a gripping narrative of the Mexican War, which eventually almost doubled the size of the United States.
The Training Ground vividly takes us into the thick brush of Palo Alto, where a musket ball narrowly misses Grant but kills a soldier standing near him; through the mountains and ravines of Cerro Gordo, as Lee searches frantically for a secret route into the Mexican army's seemingly invincible position; to Monterrey, as future enemies Davis and Grant ride together into battle; down the California coast, where war-hungry Sherman seeks blood and vengeance. And we are there as the young troops mount the final heroic—and deadly—assault on Mexico City.
So, for the past few weeks I've been working through it. The truth is, I am not a big war history buff and I found the book hard to get through for that reason. It's not just four biographies, it is an overview of the war which zooms in on portions relating to the four of them, but still maintaining the overall narrative of the war. Today, on my flight to Las Vegas for work, I finally finished it.
(The above is from Wikipedia, not the book. Including it for the reader's benefit.)
Overall, if you're like me and wanting to learn about the Mexican-American war, or its connections to the Civil War, I recommend this book. But I don't think I recommend it as a general book for most people.
I did export the segments I highlighted from the book, and will share them here as well as giving some small notes after each:
"They may shout and hurrah, and dance around the bonfires that will be lighted, the cannon that will roar in honor of some field of human butchery; but to what end? Is not life miserable enough, comes not death soon enough, without resort to the hideous energy of war? People of the United States! Your rulers are precipitating you into a fathomless abyss of crime and calamity! Why sleep you thoughtless on its verge, as though this was not your business, or murder could be hid from the sight of God by a few flimsy rags called banners? Awake and arrest the work of butchery ere it shall be too late to preserve your souls from the guilt of wholesale slaughter! Hold meetings! Speak out! Act!"
This comes from a segment which described the anti-war efforts against this war. I found the verbiage and tone very interesting to see, with some echoings to today.
"Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart," said Tecumseh.
One thing the book highlights is that some names I know historical figures by were modified because of their enrollment in West Point. "William" Tecumseh Sherman was not born William. It was added to his name by his father when he was submitted for admittance to West Point.
Ulysses S. Grant had no S. initial until he arrived at the school due to some clerical error. And because his name would be listed as U. S. Grant, he got nicknamed (Uncle) Sam Grant, which he chose to just go by and not fight.
But, I found this quote from Sherman interesting, while not revolutionary to hear in this modern era it speaks a great deal to his mindset and that which became evident in the Civil War.
The result was an appalling number of deaths. Unmarked graves soon lined the San Juan. Regimental bands so often played a death march for funerals that Camargo's mockingbirds learned to mimic the refrain.
I found this just so dark. Again, I've heard this concept before of birds learning songs from humans, but under the framing of this war it struck me enough that I highlighted it while reading.
President Polk's Democratic Party had a long-standing distrust of the armed forces, believing that the nation had little need for a standing army. Volunteers like Davis were his ideal soldiers. "It has never been our policy to maintain large standing armies in time of peace," Polk had declared before the war began. "They are contrary to the genius of our free institutions, would impose heavy burdens on the people and be dangerous to public liberty. Our reliance for protection and defense on the land must be mainly on our citizen soldiers, who will be ever ready, as they have been ever ready in times past, to rush with alacrity, at the call of their country, to her defense."
Oh how far this country has come, and learned. The book points out that the Mexican-American war was basically the first war for the US after the war of 1812. And it jumped out to me how different the political landscape was where they questioned even needing a standing army at all. Obviously, Polk here is meaning that the country would rely more on the militias, rather than the standing army. It's like saying that cities shouldn't have paid fire departments and should rely entirely on volunteer fire departments. Or, I suppose, perhaps it is even more about state vs national in the structure, but, regardless - the correct decision won out.
Polk's greatest dilemma over Taylor's armistice, however, lay not with the opinions of the British or the French, and certainly not with that of the Mexicans. It was the American people whom he feared most. The problem had its roots in democracy and a politician's need to be elected by the people before being allowed to serve. Americans had historically been an easily malleable, highly illiterate, and ill-informed mass of voters. But that was changing, and quickly. Technological advances in papermaking and the invention of the steam printing press (which printed well over 1,000 pages per hour, as opposed to the 240 of the Gutenberg-style manual press) had made newspapers affordable and more easily mass-produced beginning in the 1830s. Once only for the well-off, papers sprang up all around the country; New York alone had eleven dailies, a quick source of news and opinion available for as little as a penny a day.
Another interesting insight outside of the war; that the changing face of the populace thanks to the industrial revolution's innovation of the printing press threatened to interfere with the politics behind and around the war. Another echoing moment for today and the land of social media, etc. Obviously the question around algorithms etc., is inherently different at a base level, but still, I see interesting parallels still today - 200 years later.
Scott's invasion of Veracruz was the largest-ever landing of American troops on foreign soil and would not be surpassed until June 6, 1944 — D-day.
This passage jumped out at me. It lasted nearly 100 years.
Grant's job during the three-month delay in Puebla was to ride out with empty wagons and purchase produce and goods from local farmers. As a result, he often returned looking dirty and unkempt, his uniform unbuttoned for comfort. The date has been lost to history, but sometime during this period, Lee paid a visit to Garland's command and remonstrated Grant for his lack of spit and polish. It was the first time the two men ever met, and the wording was harsh enough that Grant would remember it for the rest of his life — and would remind Lee of it again when next they met on a Palm Sunday far in the future.
A bit poetic here.
By 4:00 a.m., Mexico City's authorities had sent a delegation to Scott, requesting terms of surrender. As the sun rose over the capital the following morning, the American flag was raised over Mexico's National Palace. Scott slept there that night, guarded by a squad of U.S. Marines, in what was also known as the Halls of Montezuma.
It's one of the few lines I know from the Marine Corp. anthem, and I had forgotten it was a direct reference to the Mexican-American war.
Homesick for Julia and their growing family, he abruptly resigned his commission in 1854 and returned home. Rumors that drunkenness was the cause have been greatly exaggerated, as Grant was known for his inability to drink more than a few sips of alcohol owing to his light weight and diminutive size. He struggled to find a new profession and soon failed at a number of business ventures that included farming, tanning, and bill collecting. When the Civil War began, Grant was commissioned as a colonel in the Illinois militia. Within three years he had risen to become general-in-chief of all U.S. armies. Following the war, he returned to civilian life. Grant successfully ran for president in 1868 and served two terms. He died on July 23, 1885, shortly after completing his memoirs, which were edited by Mark Twain.
The Epilogue gave a post-war summation of each of Grant, Lee, Sherman and Davis; this passage from Grant was interesting to me. I had forgotten that Mark Twain edited Grant's autobiography, and also I didn't know about his non-war life and how he had attempted a few businesses before being called back to war and rising through the ranks to Commander-in-Chief.
And that's it. As I said, overall I enjoyed the book and it accomplished what I set out to do, but it didn't floor me such that I am going to urge everyone to read it.
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Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024) - 3 out of 5 Bags of Skittles
It was fine as a finale to this movie franchise. It almost took the Fast and Furious journey and reached superhero absurdity, not quite, but almost.
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Nobody Wants This (2024) - 4 out of 5 l'chaims
Just finished the first season of this show. It's a cute romantic comedy that is smartly written and, while predictable, I enjoyed it start to finish. Looking forward to the second season.
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Rebel Ridge (2024) - 2 out of 5 Stars
Rebel Ridge was everything I expected and that is deeply disappointing. The plot was paper thin and convoluted, the action was predictable, and the pay off was weak as hell.
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Rez Ball (2024) - 3 of 5 Free Throws
The Chuska Warriors, a Native American high school basketball team from New Mexico, must band together after losing their star player if they want to keep their quest for a state championship alive.
Katie and I watched this the other day. It was enjoyable. I wouldn't call it a "must-see" but it was good and it was a positive portrayal and racism faced living on a reservation.
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Artemis by Andy Weir - 3/5 Oxygen Tanks
So I finally read Andy Weir's 2017 novel, Artemis. It follows Jazz, who lives on the moon colony with the book's title, Artemis. I am a big fan of the near-future science fiction genre and I think Weir delivers on it better than most, however I struggle with the plot of Artemis a few times along the way. There is, to me, a gaping "feel good" plot hole with the resolution of the story and it really soured the book for me.
Interestingly, this is a book I thought I had started previously and was immensely turned off from but when I came back to it recently, I had zero memory of any of it and went along for the ride.
It's a fine read and it's an interesting plot that is only doable through this near-future sci-fi genre, but yeah - bring along a healthy suspension of disbelief and just go for the ride.
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Inside - 2/5 dead pigeons
Nemo, a high-end art thief, is trapped in a New York penthouse after his heist doesn't go as planned. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, he must use all his cunning and ingenuity to survive.
The one-liner on Peacock mentioned described it as an art thief gets trapped in a highrise. I had no idea what I was in for. It's a commentary on modern society and art. Realizing that Dafoe's character's name is Nemo would have tipped me off that this wasn't a heist drama but instead an artistic commentary.
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Chernobyl (2019) - DNF / 5 Crises
[DNF is an abbreviation for "Did Not Finish"]
I tried. I really tried. I gave the first episode half an hour. But I just couldn't get into it. The awfulness of it all being that raw and real is fantastic television. It is fantastic television which isn't for me.
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The Fall Guy (2024) - 4 out of 5 stunts
A very fun and absurd movie. The montage of actual stunt footage over the credits was fantastic.
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Civil War (2024) - 3/5 stars
Watched Civil War and overall found it a fine watch but nothing that blew my mind or left me wanting to watch more.
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Fallout (2024) - 4 of 5 PIP Boys
I binged Fallout this weekend after putting it off. I never played the games and just didn't expect to enjoy it. The real reason I enjoyed it is unquestionably Walton Goggins.
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Argylle (2024) - 3/5 Stars
Definitely closer to The Gentlemen absurdity than actual Jason Bourne. As long as you go into it with properly calibrated expectations, you should enjoy it.
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Appaloosa (2008) - 2/5 Cowboys
We were looking through Ed Harris' movie credits and ended up watching this movie after The Abyss. It... was something. I guess. Definitely not one I'd recommend.
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The Abyss (1989) - 3/5 Stars
I definitely had confused this and Sphere in my head over the years. But it was a fine movie, though the ending definitely left me unsatisfied.
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Road House (2024) - 2/5 Stars
Earlier this week the wife and I sat down to watch this movie on Amazon Prime. As ardent lovers of action movies, we expected to enjoy this one. It's definitely meant to be in the Fast & the Furious genre of the modern day, but truthfully we just found much of it dumb and disappointing.
Connor McGregor, as you might imagine, is not exactly destined for the silver screen. The plot has so many problems. And sadly the action scenes were largely just... disappointing.
Satisfied watching it on streaming rather than paying to see it in theaters.
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The Lies of Locke Lamora - 4/5 Stars
I have been wanting to read this book for a while. In fact I tried a few years ago but bounced off it. Listening to it, via the Libby audiobook app, finally got me through the book. The style of the book takes some getting used to, it jumps back and forward in time which was part of what was offputting for me, but once I got settled I found it quite enjoyable.
There is a character, "Chains" (and whatever you are imagining for this character, I guarantee you are wrong.) I quite like this character and I kept imagining them portrayed by John Noble back in the early 2000s, when he played Denethor in the LOTR movies.
I'm onto the second book in this series, here's hoping it keeps my attention!
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Killers of the Flower Moon (2003) - 4 out of 5
Katie and I finally watched it via AppleTV. Overall I enjoyed it, but it's also not the sort of story I tend to enjoy. It was well crafted and the narrative kept me engaged despite there not being any real mystery to it. I haven't read the book, though it is in my virtual stack of unread ebooks. Honestly, seeing the movie, I am less likely to check out the book - but we'll see.
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Secondhand Lions (2003) - 5 out of 5 Lions
I've seen this movie countless times over the years. It's a comfort favorite and I love it for the tall tale nature and the cast. It's just wonderful for what it is.
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Scarcity Brain - 3 out of 5 hunger pangs
I just finished this audiobook. It fits neatly into my 'infotainment' category. There are some interesting ideas here, but it isn't a book I'll rush out to tell my friends to read.
It starts out strong, delving into the history and modern business of slot machines and how they shape and are built around playing the human brain against its person, something the author calls the scarcity loop. Playing on that mechanism in our brain to drive the further capitalism.
Overall I found this the most interesting portion of the book, and everything afterwards was something I could have personally skipped. There were interesting insights and stories, but nothing that made me go 'oh wow!'
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Good Omens, Season 1 (2019) - 4 of 5 Fallen Angels
So I started watching this when it first came out and then something happened and I forgot. Then, I watched The Sandman and mentally I just marked myself as having watched this as well. The whole streaming Neil Gaiman tv-show thing. In any case, I realized my mistake and put it on to watch over the past week.
David Tennant and Michael Sheen are amazing together. Fantastic chemistry and so much fun.
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One Piece (2023) - 5/5 Dreams
The live-action remake of the One Piece manga/anime was a lot of fun. I slept on it after the disappointment of the Cowboy Bebop live remake, but I'm glad I finally checked it out. Unlike Cowboy Bebop, I didn't go into it familiar with the source material except the scant details, and now I'm curious to check it out.
The show is fun and silly. I watched some of it with my mother-in-law in town, she patiently sat and watched an episode with me. Later that day she was describing 'that pirate show' to my wife and she said, "I enjoy much of what you all watch, but that pirate show is one I don't get." I am not overly surprised by this, it's far outside her standard sort of thing she'd watch, but I found her overall befuddlement somewhat amusing.
Anyway, I highly recommend you all watch it if you haven't already.
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There is No Antimimetics Division by qntm - 3.5 / 5 Antimemes
There is No Antimimetics Division by qntm
Blurb from its Amazon listing:
An antimeme is an idea with self-censoring properties; an idea which, by its intrinsic nature, discourages or prevents people from spreading it.
Antimemes are real. Think of any piece of information which you wouldn't share with anybody, like passwords, taboos and dirty secrets. Or any piece of information which would be difficult to share even if you tried: complex equations, very boring passages of text, large blocks of random numbers, and dreams...
But anomalous antimemes are another matter entirely. How do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight a war against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war?
Welcome to the Antimemetics Division.
No, this is not your first day.
Ironically, I can't remember how this book came across my attention. Maybe it was a mention by a BookToker, or maybe another social media post, but the premise grabbed my attention as it is about something which has long fascinated me, playing with memory.
The book is not normally in the realm I would read. It is a bit of a horror novel, with lots of gore and body horror described, but I came to think of the horror aspect of the novel as a bit more art house / new age. The base concept of the novel is so out there and theoretical that it made it easy for me to remove myself from the action and partition it off in my mind - I'm not the one enduring the horror, I'm the observer.
The premise of the novel is hard to summarize, but I think the way I will approach it is this: It is a novel in the vein of the online "SCP" genre. SCP is an a meta genre of fiction writing, where many different individuals contribute to a corpus of sci-fi / horror / supernatural stories with a very dark and, often, experimental tone or styles of writing.
This book is very much all of that. It is weird. It is hard to read sometimes as your brain grapples with shifts in voice or perspective, etc. But it was an interesting ride. Like sitting in a bumper car as it traverses through an art house. You're a passenger with no control of the story, observing what is around you, jarred and bumped and sometimes confused.
As the rating says - largely, I liked it. I have no desire to read it again, even if I would get more out of it with a better understanding for its goings on. Worth noting, it is a quick read. And while I spread it out over a few days, my reader tells me I spent just three hours reading it in total.
This is my first book of 2024. I'm setting a goal of reading 50 books this year, and while I started this one last year, I feel it is fair to count it to this book total as I could have as easily read it all this morning had I decided I wanted to.
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Rustin (2023) - 5 of 5 Dreams
I quite enjoyed the movie. As I told my wife, this is the sort of movie that leaves me emotionally drained. I'm sad that Bayard Rustin isn't a name I recalled hearing earlier in my life. I will definitely be looking up a biography or another historical book about him and his story.
This film reminds me how I want a series of documentaries, working title, "Just off Screen" - which highlights people like Rustin, who are important players in notable historic movements or moments, but who tend to fall just out of the focus of history's cameras.
I enjoyed this article about the film by Tanisha Ford, a professor at CUNY. It lauds the highlighting of Rustin and also notes some of the overlooked aspects in service to the narrative. Here are that article's two closing paragraphs:
Rustin does not offer any altogether new revelations about the significance of the March on Washington. In fact, it reifies the widely accepted narrative of the march as a triumphant moment for the movement and a transformative moment in US history. It does not zoom out beyond the groups assembled in its two rooms to show the degree to which the march was hotly contested by the more radical, grassroots arm of the movement. For example, Malcolm X referred to the march as the "Farce on Washington." He was critical of the White House's heavy involvement in the planning of the march and the big dollar donations that "Big Six" civil rights leaders such as Wilkins, King, and Whitney Young received from philanthropic foundations to underwrite it.
But the film is triumphant in that it proves that centering the most marginalized, like Bayard Rustin, brings other underappreciated, undercelebrated activists into the national conversation. In the film's closing scene, Bayard Rustin is collecting trash from the National Mall lawn. King has given his now classic "I have a Dream" speech, to rousing applause. Wilkins and the Big Six have brokered an Oval Office meeting with President Kennedy to make him commit to civil rights legislation. And yet Rustin—somewhat by his own choice—does not enter that room. As this scene conveys, his work is, literally, at the grassroots. Thus, by focusing on grassroots organizers, Rustin pays tribute to people such as Anna Arnold Hedgeman, Ella Baker, Joyce and Dorie Ladner, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Cortland Cox, Rachelle Horowitz—many of whom are still alive to receive their flowers.
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