The 10-3 Buffalo Bills travel to Patti Abbott Country to take on the 12-1 Detroit Lions. Some sports “experts” are hyping this game as a Super Bowl Preview. I don’t know about that. Both teams have plenty of injuries so we’ll see who shows up to play this game. The mighty Lions are 2½ point favorites. I’m not optimistic that the Bills can win this game.
How will your favorite NFL team perform today?
Anthony Chase, our local theater critic, praised Charo who he has seen in concert several times, and urged the listeners of his radio segment to buy tickets to see Charo when she was scheduled to appear in Western New York. For those of you who many be unfamiliar with Charo, she is a Spanish-born actress, singer, comedian, and flamenco guitarist who rose to international prominence in the 1960s on American television, as well as starring in several films. Charo began playing classical (Spanish-style) guitar at the age of nine, training under the famed guitarist Andrés Segovia. When she arrived in the United States, she became a popular guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and was known as the “cuchi-cuchi” girl.
Since Charo was appearing at the Rivera Theater–five minutes from our house–Diane had me buy two tickets on Thanksgiving Eve to witness this event. Charo performed a high energy show singing some ABBA songs, playing her classical guitar–of course she played “Bolero”!–and plunged into the enthusiastic audience who took dozens of selfies with the famous Charo. All in all, an excellent concert by an 80-ish woman who doesn’t look or act her age! Do you remember Charo? GRADE: B+
For part of the 1960s, Gordon R. Dickson was my Favorite Science Fiction writer. That role changed frequently from Asimov to Heinlein to Simak to Laumer…you get the idea. But for a few months, I was a Dickson guy. I read everything by Dickson I could get my hands on.
Some writers are born storytellers and Gordon R. Dickson falls into that category. Back in the late 1980s, BAEN Books published two fat collections of Dickson’s short stories: Beginnings (1988) and Ends (1988) which pretty much sum up his writing career.
These two collections provide examples of Dickson’s best work and his various interests, especially in War. Gordon R. Dickson is best known for his Childe Cycle:
If you have an interest in one of the key SF writers of the 1960s and 1970s, Beginnings and Ends encapsulate Gordon R. Dickson in two great collections. Are you a fan of Gordon R. Dickson? GRADE: A (for both)
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
I was busy organizing my music CDs last week when I found a handful of Christmas albums that had been misshelved (my bad!) and essentially “lost” for over a decade! Diane has over 100 Christmas CDs and they’re shelved separately but somehow these Christmas CDs ended up in the Smooth Jazz section!
Come Rejoice! from 1994 is a conventional Christmas album with plenty of familiar songs. The only unusual song is “Song for Sarajevo” which highlights the conflict that was occurring at that time. Judy Collins’ clear and bright voice delivers plenty of delight with this mix of Christmas songs. GRADE: B+
Renee Fleming’s Christmas in New York is more unconventional with a mix of songs, some familiar, some not. I love Fleming’s version of “Who Knows Where the Time Goes,” not a traditional Christmas song. “Central Park Serenade” is fun as is “The Man With the Bag.”
Traditionalists will love “Winter Wonderland,” “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” and “Silver Bells.” GRADE: B+
If you want to get into the Christmas Spirit, Judy Collins and Renee Fleming will take you there with these wonderful albums! Are you listening to Christmas music?
TRACK LIST:
| 1 | I’ll Be Home For Christmas | 1:06 | |
| 2 | Away In A Manger | 4:21 | |
| 3 | Joy To The World | 2:32 | |
| 4 | Song For Sarajevo | 4:44 | |
| 5 | Cherry Tree Carol | 4:28 | |
| 6 | Good King Wenceslas | 3:18 | |
| 7 | All On A Wintry Night | 3:28 | |
| 8 | Come Rejoice | 3:32 | |
| 9 | Little Road To Bethlehem | 2:35 | |
| 10 | Silent Night | 4:05 | |
| 11 | A Christmas Carol | 1:31 | |
| 12 | Charlie & The Bells Medley: White Christmas / Happy New Year | 3:40 | |
| 13 | Let It Snow | 3:09 | |
| 14 | Amazing Grace | 3:48 |
TRACK LIST:
| Winter Wonderland | 3:50 | ||
| Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas | 3:35 | ||
| Silver Bells | 3:07 | ||
| Merry Christmas, Darling | 5:36 | ||
| The Christmas Waltz | 3:19 | ||
| Who Knows Where The Time Goes | 4:26 | ||
| Sleigh Ride | 5:17 | ||
| Snowbound | 6:28 | ||
| In The Bleak Midwinter | 3:46 | ||
| Central Park Serenade | 4:12 | ||
| The Man With The Bag | 2:40 | ||
| Love And Hard Times | 4:46 | ||
| Still, Still, Still | 5:16 |
It’s sad that Mystery Scene magazine, founded in 1985 by Ed Gorman, just ended its run in October 2024 with issue #174. But when The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories: Third Annual Edition was published in 1994, the magazine world was a very different place.
Jon L. Breen’s “The Mystery in 1993” presents an optimistic picture of the market for mystery novels and short stories. Breen cites publishing statistics and pronounces the field “still healthy.” (p. 9). Breen goes on to list his 15 favorite mystery novels of 1993. In his assessment of the short stories of 1993, Breen singles out Jennifer Bowe’s Death in Store as the best short story collect he read that year (I’m tracking it down!). In the Reference Books category, Breen loved Burl Barer’s “fascinating and thorough account of Simon Templar and his creator Leslie Charteris , The Saint: A Complete History (McFarland). I’m tracking that down, too.
Breen also praised Marc Lachman’s A Reader’s Guide to the American Novel of Detection and Gary Warren Niebuhr’s A Reader’s Guide to the Private Eye Novel–two books I do own.
The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories: Third Annual Edition presents a wide variety of stories, something for every reader’s taste. I really liked Lawrence Block’s “Keller’s Therapy” and Doug Allen’s “The Ghost Show.” If you’re looking for a short story collection that captures the mystery short story essence of 1993, this is the book for you. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction: The Mystery in 1993 by Jon L. Green –9
Slasher / F. Paul Wilson — 23
Keller’s therapy / Lawrence Block — 37
The mouse in the corner / Ruth Rendell — 59
That bells may ring and whistles safely blow / Margaret Maron — 80
That damn cat / Barb Collins — 89
Parris Green / Carole Nelson Douglas — 103
The man in the red flannel suit / Jan Grape — 127
Checkout / Susan Dunlap — 141
Goodbye, Sue Ellen / Gillian Roberts — 149
The ghost show / Doug Allyn — 162
McIntyre’s Donald / Joseph Hansen — 183
Some sunny day / Julian Rathbone — 203
The wall / Marcia Muller — 231
History repeats itself, and it doesn’t even say pardon / Mat Coward — 276
Strays / Kristine Kathryn Rusch — 283
The lesson / Billie Sue Mosiman — 301
Spin-a-rama / Jeremiah Healy — 308
The mood cuckoo / Jonathan Gash — 322
The ugly earthling murder case / George Alec Effinger — 336
Sweetheart of the rodeo / Mark Timlin — 352
A vacance en campagne / Tim Heald — 376
It takes one to know one / Robert Bloch — 391
Shade work / Bill Pronzini — 412
First lead gasser / Tony Hillerman — 418
Enduring as dust / Bruce Holland Rogers — 427
Stereophonic is a play with music. A group–rumored to be based on Fleetwood Mac–is in California recording an album. But the progress is slowed by the daily disagreements and friction among the five band members.
The play is set in 1976 and the set is basically a recording studio. “The drummer, Simon (Chris Stack), does not want to use a click track, but it’s been 36 takes and he’s still dragging. Diana (Sarah Pidgeon) sings beautifully and has songwriting chops that get stronger by the day, but she’s fragile and defensive and feels constantly under attack from her lead-guitarist boyfriend, Peter (Tom Pecinka), who’s brilliant, creatively domineering … and also fragile and defensive and convinced that he’s constantly under attack from, well, everyone. The wry, aloof vocalist-keyboardist, Holly (Juliana Canfield), has, for the moment, reached a détente with her philosophizing, self-pitying, cocaine-and–Jack Daniels–fueled husband, the bassist, Reg (Will Brill), but hostilities could resume at any moment. The engineers, Grover (Eli Gelb) and Charlie (Andrew R. Butler), just want Simon to use the fucking click track so that they can get the fucking take and everyone can go the fuck to sleep.” Vulture
I thought Stereophonic was a bit too long. How many spats between this group of dysfunctional people can an audience endure? But, if you’re interested in how an album got made in the Seventies, this is the play for you. GRADE: C+
I listen to music every day and according to Daniel J. Levitin, a neuroscientist, that just might be keeping me sane and healthy. Levitin takes the reader on a guided tour of the current research into the effects music has on our health. Along the way, Levitin explains how our brains work and what we can do to keep our brains in tip-top condition.
In reading I Heard There Was a Secret Chord I learned how music can contribute to the treatment of a host of ailments, from neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, to cognitive injury, depression, and pain.
Listening to music activates certain areas of the brain, and the aim is to use that increased stimulation to help areas that have been damaged by illness or are malfunctioning to produce depression or other mental problems.
I found I Heard There Was a Secret Chord fascinating! If you want to learn more about how music can improve your health and your Life, this is the book to read. What kinds of music do you like to listen to? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
A musical species — 1
If I only had a brain : the neuroanatomy of music — 15
Oh, the shark bites : musical memory — 36
Look at me now : attention — 60
Daydream believer : the brain’s “default mode,” introspection, and meditation — 77
Interlude — 95
Music, movement, and movement disorders — 102
Parkinson’s disease — 126
Trauma — 139
Mental health — 156
Memory loss, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and stroke — 168
Pain — 187
Neurodevelopmental disorders — 200
Learning how to fly — 227
Music in everyday life — 250
Fate knocking on your door : précis to a theory of musical meaning — 276
Music medicine, mystery, and possibility — 317
Acknowledgements — 325
Appendix: Types of Music Therapy — 331
Glossary — 335
Notes — 344
Index — 384
After the Buffalo Bills defeated the San Francisco 49ers in a wonderful snow game 35-10, the 10-2 Bills travel to sunny California to take on the 6-6 LA Rams. The Bills are 4½ point favorites. The Bills have clinched the AFC East title and are now playing for a better seating in the Playoffs. The Rams are desperate to make the Playoffs. Different motivations…
How will your favorite NFL team perform today?
Mia Farrow plays Sharon, a recently divorced woman in rural Iowa. Sharon’s never had a roommate before. Patti LuPone plays Robyn, the roommate from New York City, who upends Sharon’s placid Life.
I enjoyed Jen Silverman’s quirky one-act play, The Roommate, with its wit and surprises in a situation of developing rapport between two troubled women from exceedingly different backgrounds. Patti LuPone doesn’t sing in this play, but she’s convincing as a conniving woman with a dark Past. Mia Farrow morphs from a stereotypical housewife…to something much more liberated and dangerous. The ending did not satisfy me, but what came before it did. GRADE: B
I was late to discover the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child. When Tom Cruise brought out Jack Reacher in 2012–based on Child’s 2005 novel One Shot–I read the novel before I saw the movie and was immediately hooked. Jack Reacher is a wandering adventurer with a military past. He’s 6’5″ and 250 pounds of muscle. Cruise took a lot of criticism for “pretending” to have the stature of Reacher.
Usually I read a series in chronological order, but with the Jack Reacher series I skipped around. I found a Jack Reacher novel was perfect for trips: reading in the Airport, reading on the plane. So I saved the Reacher books for travel. On my latest trip to New York City for Thanksgiving, I decided to read Persuader (2003), the seventh Reacher novel. AMAZON Prime Video will be releasing Reacher, Season Three in 2025 which is based on Persuader.
As usual, Reacher finds himself involved in a twisted plot where a figure from his military past looms large in criminal activities in New England. Reacher manages to insert himself into the crime ring by “rescuing” the leader’s son during an attempted kidnaping at the boy’s college.
Persuader shifts from Past to Present as the backstory of Reacher’s current quest is revealed. If you’re looking for a page-turner with compelling action and thrills, pick up a copy of Persuader. I can’t wait to see the AMAZON Prime Video version of the fight between Reacher and a 400 lb. giant! Are you a Jack Reacher fan? GRADE: B+