I’ve been a fan of Joe Cocker’s music since the 1960. Sure, Joe has a gravelly voice, but he can sure belt out a song! Have a Little Faith came out in 1994 and presents a nice mix of songs. I like the covers of “Summer in the City” and “The Great Divide” a lot!

Legends of English Rock from 1992 feature not The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, nor The Who. Instead, Marianne Faithful, The Nice, The Yardbirds, and Small Faces show up. The biggest Name singer on this compilation CD is Rod Stewart! Do you remember these songs? Any favorites here?

GRADES:

Have a Little Faith: A

Legends of English Rock: B-

TRACK LIST :

1		Let The Healing Begin Guitar – Tony Joe White Written-By – Tony Joe White	5:12
2		Have A Little Faith In Me Written-By – John Hiatt	4:40
3		The Simple Things Bass Guitar – Abraham Laboriel Written-By – John Shanks, Phil Roy, Rick Neigher	4:54
4		Summer In The City Written-By – J. Sebastian*, M. Sebastian*, S. Boone*	4:10
5		The Great Divide Alto Saxophone [Solo], Soloist – Ernie Watts Written-By – D. O’Brian*, J.D. Souther*	3:33
6		Highway Highway Written-By – Steven Allen Davis*	4:31
7		Too Cool Written-By – G. Sutton*, K. Fleming*	4:45
8		Soul Time Guitar – Michael Thompson Written-By – Frankie Miller, Will Jennings	4:35
9		Out Of The Blue Written-By – Robbie Robertson	3:45
10		Angeline Guitar – Tony Joe White Written-By – Joe Cocker, Tony Joe White	4:30
11		Hell And Highwater Written-By – John Miles, M. Pratt*	4:12
12		Standing Knee Deep In A River Written-By – Bob McDill, Bucky Jones, Dickey Lee	4:09
13		Take Me Home Alto Saxophone [Solo], Soloist – Ernie Watts Backing Vocals – Steve Kipner Guitar – Michael Thompson Vocals – Bekka Bramlett Written-By – John Capek, Mark Jordan*, Steve Kipner

TRACK LIST:

1	Marianne Faithfull–	Vanilla O’Lay Written-By – J. De Shannon*	3:53
2	Humble Pie–	Only You Can See Written-By – P. Frampton*	3:36
3	P.P. Arnold–	The First Cut Is The Deepest Written-By – C. Stevens*	3:04
4	Duncan Browne–	On The Bombsite Written-By – D. Bretton*, D. Browne*	3:03
5	Small Faces–	Afterglow Written-By – R. Lane*, S. Marriott*	3:30
6	The Yardbirds–	Stroll On Written-By – C. Dreja*, J. Beck*, J. Page*, K. Relf*	2:43
7	The Nice–	Hang On To A Dream Written-By – T. Hardin*	4:46
8	Chris Farlowe–	Paint It Black Written-By – M. Jagger-K. Richards*	3:25
9	Earl Vince & The Valiants–	Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight Written-By – J. Spencer*	2:39
10	Rod Stewart–	Little Miss Understood Written-By – M. D’Abo*	3:37

With Halloween just around the corner, I thought it would be a nice time to tackle this 1034 page doorstop of an anthology. It claims “The Most Complete Volume of Vampire Tales Ever Published” and I believe it!

Black Lizard Press published The Vampire Archives back in 2009. If you check out the Table of Contents I’m sure you’ll find your favorite vampire stories included.

If you’re a fan of vampire stories from the 19th Century, Otto Penzler includes plenty obscure vampire tales to satisfy you.

If you’re in the mood for stories with a bite, here’s a gold mine! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Foreword by Kim Newman
Preface by Neil Gaiman
Introduction: “They Will Have Blood” by Otto Penzler
“Good Lady Ducayne” by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
“The Last Lords of Gardonal” (1867) by William Gilbert
“A Mystery of the Campagna” (1886) by Anne Crawford
“The Fate of Madame Cabanel” (1880) by Eliza Lynn Linton
“Let Loose” (1890) by Mary Cholmondeley
“The Vampire” (1886) poem by Vasile Alecsandrai
“The Death of Halpin Frayser” (1891) by Ambrose Bierce
“Ken’s Mystery” (1883) by Julian Hawthorne
“Carmilla” (1937) novella Sheridan Le Fanu
“The Tomb of Sarah” (1900) by F. G. Loring
“Ligeia” (1838) by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Old Portrait” (1890) by Hume Nisbet
“The Vampire Maid” (1890) by Hume Nisbet
“The Sad Story of a Vampire” (1894) by Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock
“A Case of Alleged Vampirism” by Luigi Capuana
“An Authenticated Vampire Story” (1909) by Franz Hartmann
“Revelations in Black” (1933) by Carl Jacobi
“The Master of Rampling Gate” (1984) by Anne Rice
“The Vampire of Kaldenstein” (1938) by Frederick Cowles
“An Episode of Cathedral History” (1914) by M. R. James
“Schloss Wappenburg” (1948) by D. Scott-Moncrieff
“The Hound” (1924) by H. P. Lovecraft
“Bite-Me-Not or, Fleur de Fur” (1984) by Tanith Lee
“The Horror at Chilton Castle” (1963) by Joseph Payne Brennan
“The Singular Death of Morton” (1910) by Algernon Blackwood
“The Death of Ilalotha” (1937) by Clark Ashton Smith
“The Bride of Corinth” (1797) poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“The Giaour (excerpt) (1813) poem by Lord Byron
“La Belle Dame sans Merci” (1820) poem by John Keats
“Place of Meeting” (1953) by Charles Beaumont
“Duty” (1991) by Ed Gorman
“A Week in the Unlife” (1991) by David J. Schow
“Four Wooden Stakes” (1925) by Victor Rowan
“The Room in the Tower” (1912) by E. F. Benson
“Mrs. Amworth” (1922) by E. F. Benson
“Doctor Porthos” (1968) by Basil Copper
“For the Blood Is the Life” (1905) by F. Marion Crawford
“Count Magnus” (1904) by M. R. James
“When It Was Moonlight” (1940) by Manly Wade Wellman
“The Drifting Snow” (1939) by August Derleth
“Aylmer Vance and the Vampire (1914) by Alice Askew and Claude Askew
“Dracula’s Guest” [from Dracula]” (1914) by Bram Stoker
“The Transfer” (1911) by Algernon Blackwood
“The Stone Chamber” (1898) by H. B. Marriott Watson
“The Vampire” (1920) by Jan Neruda
“The End of the Story” (1930) by Clark Ashton Smith
“The Lovely Lady” (1927) by D. H. Lawrence
“The Parasite” (1894) by Arthur Conan Doyle
“Lonely Women Are the Vessels of Time” (1976) by Harlan Ellison
“Blood” (1955) by Fredric Brown
“Popsy” (1987) by Stephen King
“The Werewolf and the Vampire” (1975) by R. Chetwynd-Hayes
“Drink My Red Blood” (1951) by Richard Matheson
“Dayblood” (1985) by Roger Zelazny
“Replacements” (1992) by Lisa Tuttle
“Princess of Darkness” (1987) by Frederick Cowles
“The Silver Collar” (1989) by Garry Kilworth
“The Old Man’s Story” (1933) by Walter Starkie
“Will” (1899) by Vincent O’Sullivan
“Blood-Lust” (1922) by Dion Fortune
“The Canal” (1927) by Everil Worrell
“When Gretchen Was Human” (2001) by Mary A. Turzillo
“The Story of Chugoro” (1902) by Lafcadio Hearn
“The Men & Women of Revendale” (1984) by Steve Rasnic Tem
“Winter Flowers” (1993) by Tanith Lee
“The Man Who Loved the Vampire Lady” (1988) by Brian Stableford
“Midnight Mass” (1990) by F. Paul Wilson
“The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire” (1924) by Arthur Conan Doyle
“A Dead Finger” (1904) by Sabine Baring-Gould
“Wailing Well” (1928) by M. R. James
“Human Remains” (1984) by Clive Barker
“The Vampire” (1930) by Sydney Horler
“Stragella” (1932) by Hugh B. Cave
“Marsyas in Flanders” (1900) by Vernon Lee
“The Horla” (1886) by Guy de Maupassant (translated by Le Horla)
“The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” (1949) by Fritz Leiber
“The Living Dead” (1967) by Robert Bloch
“Down Among the Dead Men” (1982) by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann
“Necros” (1986) by Brian Lumley
“The Man Upstairs” (1947) by Ray Bradbury
“Chastel” (1979) by Manly Wade Wellman
“Dracula’s Chair” (1980) by Peter Tremayne
“Special” (1991) by Richard Laymon
“Carrion Comfort” (1983) by Dan Simmons
“The Sea Was Wet as Wet Could Be” (1967) by Gahan Wilson

Thomas Hobbes, author of the class Leviathan, was obsessed with Order and War. Hobbes believed that without a strong Government, “…there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no culture of the Earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea…no knowledge of the face of the earth…no arts, no letters, no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death…” (p. 3)

Sounds a lot like the chaos we’re heading for in 2027.

John Gray predicts: “Putin’s klepto-theorcray may persist after his demise, and, if it does not disintegrate, the Russian state may morph into a steampunk Byzantium with nukes. China may continue as a high-tech Panopticon, or renew itself by becoming once again a multicultural empire. If India can recover the complexity of its traditions, it could reinvent the tolerant empire of Ashoka (c. 304-232 B.C.). The European Union may became an avatar of the late Holy Roman Empire, a faded kaleidoscope of shifting principalities and powers. If it does not blunder into a global war to restore its lost hegemony, the U.S. may drift on, a florid hybrid of fundamentals sects, woke cults, and techno-futurist oligarchs.” (p. 159)

The world is a mess. Our incompetent President has alienated our allies and is spending a billion dollars a day on an inept War with Iran. What a farce! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

The return of Leviathan — 3

Artificial states of nature — 56

Mortal gods — 111

Notes — 163

Acknowledgements — 181

Is the Future of Artificial Intelligence going to be like The Terminator or will we escape Doom and find ourselves in Paradise? Josh Tyyrangiel leans toward Paradise and delivers a number of actual Real World examples of what is being done with AI.

Rita Pappas of the Cleveland Clinic, the medical director of hospital operations, used AI to tackle the inefficient management of admissions, discharges and transfers. AI improved the way the Cleveland Clinic operates today.

But wait, there’s more!

Army general (now retired) and chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, Gustave Perna, used AI in a massive medical experiment. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Perna collected data from across the healthcare industry to build a real-time vaccine supply chain, racing to deliver the Covid-19 vaccine to save millions of lives. We all know how that turned out.

However, for each of Tyrangiel’s positive examples, I can think of a negative AI example. I think AI will cause massive unemployment as AI takes over lower level jobs–that’s happening today. There’s a Good Reason why College Graduates booed Graduation Speakers last month when they mentioned AI.

The road to The Terminator is paved with autonomous weapons systems–which the Pentagon is building Right Now. Weapons that can act (aka, kill) without human guidance is a slippy slope. While Josh Tyrangiel’s AI for Good is hopeful, I’m not convinced. What do you think of AI? GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION — 1

PART 1: I believe the children are our future

1. Ed’s dead — 15
2. How to train your tutor (while slowly losing your mind) — 23
3. You’ll be disappointed for a long time until you’re not — 29
4. Get Buffington — 43
5. Every student’s a critic — 51
6. More human today — 59
   PART 2: Physician, heal thyself
7. Tommy — 73
8. Digital twins — 79
9. Twenty-dollar burgers in a haunted house — 95
10. The farmer and the samurai — 99
11. Hospitals and hotels — 105
12. Sepsis — 113
    PART 3: A republic, if you can optimize it.
13. The general’s warning — 131
14. A logistical moonshot — 135
15. Brief moments for exceptional things — 143
16. Lululemon in the iron triangle — 155
17. The frozen middle — 159
18. An emotional nudge — 165
19. AI fight club at the IRS — 173
20. Dilettantes and vandals — 185
    PART 4 : Only connect
21. Eliza and her descendants 195
22. Felix — 203
23. Zero-shot — 211
24. Mysteries in a hairbrush — 219
25. David and Goliath — 225

Epilogue — 239

Acknowledgements — 243

Index-– 245

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

 Prologue: The Magicians 1

The Arrival of God

High Fliers

Maintaining One’s Composure The Davos Myth

Human Questions

Without Foundation Two Visions

At a Crossroads

Where Is Benjamin? Fail Better

Does My Life Need a Goal?

The One-Man Republic

II Leaps: 1919 29

What to Do?

A Refuge

Critical Days

Romantic Theses New Self-Awareness

Flights

The Transformation

Ethical Acts

A Sorrow Beyond Dreams

An Interesting Condition Exposed Flanks

A World Without a View

The Primal Scientist No Alibi

The New Realm

Fidelity to the Event German Virtues

Unloved

Electrified

III Languages: 1919-1920 61

Figuratively Speaking

Viennese Bridges

Poetic Precision Against the World

Three Dots in The Hague Pictures of Facts

The Barber

Russell on the Ladder

Why the World Does Not Exist

Under Pressure The Obscured Gaze

Lonely Together

Two Oddballs Worlds Ahead

The Breakthrough of Authenticity Something in Media

Flappers

The Task Radical Translation

Cult and Sound

Goethe in Hamburg The Fundamental Phenomenon

The Will to Multiplicity Onward

Does the Language Exist?

IV Culture: 1922-1923 115

A Hut of One’s Own

Strange Callings

Existential Health Check

Stormy Weather

Wars of Attrition

Bad Neighbors Good Neighbors

Utopia on the Bookshelf

The Outcome of Myth The New Enlightenment

Across the River In the Maelstrom

The Third Man

Goethe in Weimar More Light

Freedom or Fate

Choice or Decision The Divorced Republic

Leap of Salvation Redeeming Transcendence

Ruthlessness Three-Quarters Understood

In Therapy

Top Down

V You: 1923-1925 163

The Idiot

It’s Complicated

Hospitality From Hamburg to Bellevue

Snake Experiments Tunnel and Light

Weimar Topples

Mighty Fortresses Being an Event

You, Demon

In the Midst of Being To Think the Hardest Thing

Amor Mundi

Hunger Cures Goodbye Deutschland

Grapes and Almonds

New Beginnings

VI Freedom: 1925-1927 205

Red Stars

Critical Prologues

A Case for Adam Grief Work

Remembered Perception

Tristes Tropiques Critical Album

Palestine or Communism

Neighbors To Work

Exposing the Question The Time of Dasein Philosophizing with a Hammer: The Study of Equipment Sturm und Angst That Certain Something: Running Ahead into Death The Hamburg School

The Hidden Origin Plurality of Outcome

Self-Fashioning Through Openness The Fault in Our Stars

Out of the Mouths of Babes Engineers of Speech

A Little List

The Responsibility Principle A Fainting Fit

VII Arcades: 1926-1928 263

Technical Talent

For Gods Alone A Circle Without a Master

Much to Learn You Still Have Instability

Moscow or Bust

The Hell of Other People A Man Without a Framework

Party for One

High Seas In the Eye of the Storm

An Emergency in Frankfurt Individual and Republic

Building Work

Age of the Demon After Being

Foundation and Abyss Back to the Origin

Homecoming

Dizzy Heights

VIII Time: 1929 317

Slaloming

Among People

On the Eve

Relax! Verbal Storms: The Davos Debate

Licking Wounds Spring Awakenings

The Three-Hundred-Penny Opera The Doors

Breathless

Gaslight

The Self-Destructive Personality Hot Dogs

The Hiker

A Day Off Internal Difficulties

Back to the Everyday Naples in Cambridge

Useful Reminders The City of Words

Against the Wall

Epilogue 363

Acknowledgments 367

List of Works 369

Notes 373

Selected Bibliography 387

Photograph Credits 397

Index 401

I know Steve Oerkfitz isn’t a fan of philosophers–especially Kant–but the positive reviews of Time of The Magicians lead me to read this fascinating book. It’s not so much about each philosopher’s conceptions (although there is some of this included) but more about the strangeness of these men. Take Ludwig Wittgenstein for example. Wittgenstein thought that maybe three people in the world would understand his Tractatus logic-philosophicus. Wittgenstein gave away hundreds of millions to his family members and lived in poverty for the rest of his life.

Martin Heidegger may be the best known philosopher in this group, but not for his philosophy. Heidegger cozied up to the Nazis and had an affair with Hannah Arendt. Ernest Cassirer labored diligently at Hamburg University, but barely escaped Germany. Cassirer ended up teaching in the United States.

Walter Benjamin, a polymath with gambling and drug problems, fled for Spain when the Nazis took over Paris. “On the night of September 26, 1940, fleeing in fear of deportation by the Nazis, Benjamin committed suicide with morphine in a hotel in the Pyrenean town of Portbou, only a few hundred meters from the Spanish border.” (p. 364)

Benny Blanco is a writer and producer who has worked with Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, Britney Spears, Rihanna, Katey Perry, Kesha, Justin Bieber, and many other singers. How can a kid with ADHD and OCD manage to overcome his problems to become a successful record producer, songwriter, artist, actor, record executive…and now an author?

Much of F*CK FAILURE is a litany of Benny Bianco’s mistakes. I’m surprised anyone would want to admit making this many mistakes. But Benny isn’t afraid of failure. In F*CK FAILURE Benny says if you want to be successful, you need to embrace failure. And learn from it!

The chronicle of Benny’s screw-ups shows that he learned how to be persistent. Things go wrong for Benny all the time as he pursues his dreams. Of course, things go wrong for many of the people he works with, too.

Benny Blanco worked on “Teenage Dream” and “California Girls”, and 19 other Number One hits. I’m always interested in success stories. But F*uck Failure delivers a very different picture of how to get to the top. GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

YOU ARE A FAILURE — 1

1. Shut up — 13

2. Dream big — 19

3. Live like it’s real — 47

4. Fail until it feels good — 87

5. Don’t be a dick — 119

6. Be nice to yourself — 153

7. Relax (there’s always tomorrow) — 187

Acknowledgements — 191

The 2-0 Buffalo Bills take on the 0-2 LA Chargers in what might be a “Trap Game.” The Bills are favored by 7 points and the Chargers are riddled with injuries. But LA Chargers’ Head Coach Jim Harbaugh is already on the Hot Seat and desperately needs a win. I’m expecting the Chargers to pull out all the stops against the Bills today.

How will your favorite NFL team perform today?

I’ve enjoyed the PBS Susan Ryeland / Atticus Pünd Series--Magpie Murders (see my review here) and Moonflower Murders (see my review here). It looks like Marble Hall Murders will conclude the series and complete the trilogy.

Like the first two novels, Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders, Marble Hall Murders runs on two tracks: Susan Ryeland investigating suspicious deaths, and fictional detective, Atticus Pund, investigating the poisoning of a wealth matriarch. The story within a story format might annoy some viewers especially when Ryeland speaks to the fictional Pund.

I’ve read Anthony Horowitz’s novel that this series is based on. Horowitz also wrote the screenplay for all six episodes. I’ve watched three of the six episodes and I’m enjoying what I’m seeing. GRADE: Incomplete but trending towards a B+

I’ve watched the first five seasons of SLOW HORSES on Apple TV+. Each of those series were based on one Mick Herron book. Now, with SLOW HORSES, SEASON 6, something has changed. Season 6 is based on not one, but TWO Mick Herron books: Joe Country and Slough House.

I have yet to read the reason why Season 6 mashes up two of Herron’s books, but if I do I’ll share the reason with you.

Both books have commonalities. Members of Slough House (a group of MI5 spies who made mistakes that have lead to their exile at Slough House) are killed as a result of some very twisty plots.

(Mild Spoiler) A character from an early Mick Herron novel who was declared dead by MI5 shows up at River Cartwright’s grandfather’s house. The members of Slough House find they’re being followed. Political shenanigans from an assassination in Russia lead to more deaths in England in response.

I’m only a couple episodes into SLOW HORSES, SEASON 6 so it’s too early for me to weigh in on the blending of Joe Country and Slough House. All I know is…I love this series–both novels and TV series!

It was time for me to gravitate back to the 1980s with two more compilation CDs. ’80s Favorites (2010) has more Name singers and groups. Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes” still gets air play on our local Oldies station. So does Irene Cara’s “Flashdance.”

Casey Kasem Presents America’s Top 10 Hits (2005) has Foreigner asking “I Want to Know What Love Is” and Pat Benatar asking someone to “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” REO Speedwagon wants to “Keep on Loving You” while The Cars want to “Shake It Up.”

Yes, this is the type of music I listen to while I’m cleaning up the garage. Do you remember these hits? Any favorites here? GRADE: B (for both)

TRACK LIST:

1	Starship (2)–	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	4:23
2	Kim Carnes–	Bette Davis Eyes	3:43
3	Night Ranger–	Sister Christian	5:20
4	Katrina, Formerly Of Katrina And The Waves*–	Walking On Sunshine	3:42
5	The Motels–	Only The Lonely	3:17
6	Robbie Dupree–	Steal Away	3:20
7	Lita Ford–	Close My Eyes Forever	5:26
8	Escape Club*–	Wild, Wild, Wild West	4:05
9	The Motels–	Suddenly Last Summer	3:43
10	Irene Cara–	Flashdance…What A Feeling	4:07
11	Howard Jones–	Things Can Only Get Better	6:57
12	Todd Rundgren–	Bang On The Drum All Day	3:34

TRACK LIST:

1	Quiet Riot–	Cum On Feel The Noize	3:26
2	White Lion–	Wait	3:59
3	Skid Row–	18 And Life	3:51
4	Foreigner–	I Want To Know What Love Is	5:01
5	Bryan Adams–	Run To You	3:54
6	The J. Geils Band–	Centerfold	3:35
7	Night Ranger–	Sister Christian	4:21
8	Yes–	Owner Of A Lonely Heart	3:51
9	Whitesnake–	Here I Go Again	3:52
10	Warrant–	Heaven	4:06
11	The Grateful Dead–	Touch Of Grey	4:37
12	REO Speedwagon–	Keep On Loving You	3:21
13	Genesis–	Tonight, Tonight, Tonight	4:28
14	Pat Benatar–	Hit Me With Your Best Shot	2:50
15	Poison (3)–	Every Rose Has Its Thorn	4:18
16	The Georgia Satellites–	Keep Your Hands To Yourself	3:29
17	The Kinks–	Come Dancing	3:53
18	Phil Collins–	Sussudio	4:23
19	Boston–	Amanda	4:13
20	The Cars–	Shake It Up	3:35