After losing to the NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS 29-26, the 3-1 Buffalo Bills travel to the West Coast to take on the 2-2 LA Rams. The Rams are favored by 3 points. Both teams are dealing with injured players so we’ll have to seen who shows up the play tonight. I don’t have a good feeling about this game.
The Buffalo Bills are flying to the West Coast today to take on the LA Rams on Monday Night Football. How will your favorite NFL team perform today?
A movie about Mattel toys might struggle to attract an adult audience although John Cena and Jessica Biel try their best. Director Sam Hargrave attempts to give Matchbox: The Movie a Fast and Furious vibe but it’s a stretch when the movie is basically a commercial for toy cars.
Matchbox: The Movie is John Cena’s 19th film in the last five years. Busy actor! On the other hand Jessica Biel appears in her first film role in almost a decade, I did NOT find Biel convincing as a hot-rod nut or as a daredevil driver,
Maybe I’m just not in the Target Market for a hybrid film like this. GRADE: C
“Amanda Cross” is the pen name of Carolyn Gold Heilbrun (1926–2003), an American feminist author and Columbia University English professor who wrote a popular series of academic mystery novels. You can’t get more academic than James Joyce so this mystery mixes murder with the structure of one of Joyce’s best books. “Each chapter is cleverly named after a story from James Joyce’s Dubliners, and the plot weaves in literary puzzles, academic wit, and subtle nods to Joyce’s work.”
Kate Falser, an English professor like her writer, goes to the Berkshires for the summer to sort through the literary correspondence of an American publisher and James Joyce. But literary work is put on hold when Mary Bradford, an obnoxious and gossipy local farmer’s wife, is shot dead. The weapon belongs to the household, turning Kate’s guests and circle into prime suspects.
If you’re in the mood for a clever mystery blended with literary clues, The James Joyce Murder (1967) provides an academic puzzle that will challenge you. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
I was living in the Past last week when I listened to Devil With a Blue Dress On and Blood, Sweat & Tears: Greatest Hits.
“Ryder was the last person to perform with Otis Redding; they performed the song “Knock On Wood“, on December 9, 1967, in Cleveland, Ohio, on a local TV show called Upbeat. Redding and four members of his touring band, The Bar-Kays, died in a plane crash near Madison, Wisconsin the following day, December 10, 1967.” (Wikipedia). Ryder withdrew from music in 1973 after experiencing throat trouble,
“Blood, Sweat & Tears (also known as “BS&T“) was an American jazz rock music group founded in New York City in 1967, noted for combining a brass section with rock band instrumentation. BS&T has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has encompassed a wide range of musical styles. Their sound has merged rock, pop and R&B/soul music with big band jazz. The Canadian lead singer David Clayton-Thomas was added to the group in 1968 and stayed until 1972, marking their most successful period.” (Wikipedia).
I enjoy the Blood, Sweat & Tears sound with David Clayton-Thomas’s distinctive voice. Clayton-Thomas died at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, on 24 June 2026, at the age of 84. If you like music with a lot of brass–like Chicago’s music–BS&T delivers that style of music. Back in 1970, “And When I Die“, “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy“, and “Spinning Wheel” hit the Hot 100 and all three songs peaked at number 2 for a total of thirteen weeks.
Needless to say, our local Oldies radio station rarely plays Mitch Ryder or Blood, Sweat & Tears music anymore. But I still have these CD collections and they sound wonderful to me! Are you a fan of Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels and/ Blood, Sweat & Tears? Any favorite songs? GRADE: B+ (for both)
TRACK LIST:
| 1 | Devil With A Blue Dress On & Good Golly Miss Molly | 3:32 | |
| 2 | Little Latin Lupe Lu | 3:10 | |
| 3 | Sticks And Stones | 2:39 | |
| 4 | I Like It Like That | 2:47 | |
| 5 | Too Many Fish In The Sea & Three Little Fishes | 3:02 | |
| 6 | Sock It To Me-Baby | 3:12 | |
| 7 | Takin’ All I Can Get | 3:21 | |
| 8 | You Get Your Kicks | 3:09 | |
| 9 | Just A Little Bit | 2:41 | |
| 10 | Break-Out | 3:17 |
TRACK LIST:
| You’ve Made Me So Very Happy | 3:26 | ||
| I Can’t Quit Her | 3:38 | ||
| Go Down Gamblin’ | 2:46 | ||
| Hi-De-Ho | 4:05 | ||
| Sometimes In Winter | 3:08 | ||
| And When I Die | 3:26 | ||
| Spinning Wheel | 2:39 | ||
| Lisa, Listen To Me | 2:58 | ||
| I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know | 5:58 | ||
| Lucretia Mac Evil | 3:07 | ||
| God Bless The Child | 5:57 |
A few weeks ago Jerry House mentioned he was read an anthology called Birds of Prey. I immediately ordered the book and finally got around to reading it over the weekend. As you know, editors love “themed” anthologies. In his Introduction, Halen Coben writes: “I challenged eleven of my favorite writers to write a short story containing a bird of prey.” (p. 8)
The results are mixed. I liked Tess Gerritsen’s “The Coffin Bearer” where a woman discovers a dead body. The twist to the story is the woman has fashioned a new identity and is afraid this murder could be a threat her.
The oddest story in Birds of Prey is Kathy Reichs’ “Owl.” The Government recruits a specialist known as Owl to investigate what might be an extraterrestrial. Plenty of surprises in this story!
I also enjoyed “The Falcon” by Robert Dugoni. Three Stanford students decide to buy a car at a police auction. But the students find out the car–a 1965 Ford Falcon–was owned by a gang member…who wants it back or else.
If you’re in the mood for an off-beat crime anthology, Birds of Prey will entertain you. GRADE: B
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction / Harlan Coben
The coffin bearer / Tess Gerritsen
Precious change / C. J. Box
Owl / Kathy Reichs
Kudzu / Ace Atkins
Silent as a shadow / S. A. Cosby
Jailbirds / Hank Phillippi Ryan
The falcon / by Robert Dugoni
Watchers / Allison Brennan
Red of beak and claw / Gregg Hurwitz
Hawkshaw hunting / Kelley Armstrong.
I’ve been a fan of Michael Lewis for years. The latest Michael Lewis book, Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State, tells the stories of six civil servants who risked or ended their careers to protect critical government functions, ranging from IRS data protection to wildfire prevention, and scientific research.
DOGE and Trump have purged the Government of thousands of career federal civil servants. Lewis shows how federal workers targeted by President Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) were dealt with. They labeled resistant public servants as “blockers”.
“I, _, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”– Civil Service Oath of Office, U.S. Code § 3331.
That’s the oath Federal employees take when hired. They are NOT bound to a political party or a particular President. But Trump feels the Government works only for him. Lewis writes about heroic actions of Federal employees who took their oath seriously and tried to serve American citizens.
The resistance to Trump and Musk is an inspiring story that should give us hope we can dig out of the hole those fools have put us in. GRADE: A
Despite being acknowledged as the most gifted stylist writing in the English Language, Evelyn Waugh ran out of money in the late 1950s. The royalties of his previous novels dwindled and Waugh was forced to find another source of income. That source was essays, articles, and reviews.
The Essays, Articles, and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh (1983) edited by Donat Gallagher runs 662 pages. About two-thirds of this collection deal with topics most contemporary readers would not be interested in. For example, how much do you want to read about Abyssinia, Marshal Tito, Waugh’s conservative Roman Catholic opinions? Too much of the articles, essays, and reviews in this volume wear plenty of dust.
I read The Essays, Articles, and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh because Michael Dirda recommended it. Dirda used to be the Book Editor for The Washington Post who I considered one of the top reviewers in the land. Reading The Essays, Articles, and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh wasn’t a complete loss. I came away with these gems:
“It may well be that in future generations Mr. Wodehouse’s public may shrink; the vast and grateful masses who now devour him…will turn onto other more topical entertaining, leaving him to survive as an epicures’ delight.” (p. 255)
“Messrs Graves’s and Hodge’s Handbook for Writers of English Prose has attracted more attention than is healthy, for there is little in it that we did not know at the age of 18. But we live in an unhealthy age. What Mr. Graves and Mr. Hodge and I learned at school is on longer considered the rudimentary equipment of an educated man.” (p. 275)
“There is no tradition of Titus Andronicus; only the established faith that it is unactable. …Its notorious horror repellent to gentler gyrations, seem drab today, conceding as they do plain butchery devoid of evil or pity. There is no plausible character, still less a liable one. There is no line of poetry, hardly a dozen lines of memorable rhetoric.” (p. 475)
…Consider the case of James Joyce. There was a writer possessed by style. His later work lost almost all faculty of communication, so intimate, allusive and idiosyncratic did it become, so obsessed by euphony and nuance. But because he was obscure and can only be read with intense intellectual effort–and therefore without easy pleasure–he is admitted in the academic canon.” (p. 478)
This should give you a sample of Evelyn Waugh’s writing and approach to reviews–the strongest and most relevant pieces in The Essays, Articles, and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh .
It you’re looking for a master stylist, this is the place to meet him. GRADE: A
After the 24-16 ugly win over the 0-3 LA Chargers, the lucky Buffalo Bills face the 1-2 New England Patriots who are still recovering from their 35-3 ugly loss at the hands of the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Bills are 6 point favorites but they’re confronted by a desperate team yearning for a Big Win.
How will your favorite NFL team do today?
Our Future?????