I was rooting for Austin Butler to win an Oscar for Elvis…but it didn’t happen. Still, Elvis provided a wonderful movie about a rising star and the manipulation–over 20 years–by his manager. Colonel Tom Parker, portrayed by Tom Hanks under a ton of make-up, comes off an an enigmatic figure who both helped and hurt Elvis in so many ways.

For Elvis music lovers, here are the songs on the Blu-ray (and soundtrack CD). Are you an Elvis fan? GRADE: A

TRACK LIST:

I usually do my Federal and State taxes over the Presidents’ Day weekend, but this year the IRA asked that taxpayers delay sending their taxes in for a couple of weeks. So I waited until yesterday and finally installed TURBOTAX 2022 DELUXE on my computer and began the tedious process of data entry. The whole process took about an hour and at the end I owed a bit of money to the Feds and a bit more to New York State.

Do you have your taxes done? Do you do it yourself or do you farm the tax preparation out?

Does anybody really care about the Oscars anymore? Will people tune in just to see if someone gets slapped or punched? I have no special knowledge about these movies. I watched most of them on a streaming service since the movie theater industry–especially Regal–seems to be going bankrupt. Here are my picks. Who do you think will win?

BEST PICTURE: Everything Everywhere All At Once

BEST ACTOR: Austin Butler, Elvis

BEST ACTRESS: Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Ke Huy Yuan, Everything Everywhere All At Once

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS; Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Insherin

BEST DIRECTOR: Daniel Qwan & Daniel Schelnert, Everything Everywhere All At Once

The Mandalorian stars Pedro Pascal as the title character, a bounty hunter traveling to Mandalore to redeem his past transgressions with his companion Grogu (aka, Baby Yoda) in the early episodes of this eight episode season.

This third season of The Mandalorian features Bo-Katan Kryze, once a ruler of Mandalore before the planet was bombed into rubble, who decides to help the Mandalorian and Grogu. Katee Sackhoff, who I really liked in Longmire, brings Bo-Katan Kryze to life with spirit and grit. In the second episode, she saves the Mandalorian’s life not once…but twice!

I’ve enjoyed the first two seasons of The Mandalorian and after watching the first two episodes of Season 3 I’m delighted with the direction the plot is taking. Are you a fan of The Mandalorian? GRADE: (Incomplete…but trending towards an A)

I was too old by the 1960s to be much of a pulp magazine reader. The pulps folded in the 1950s. And outside of collectors, the pulps found that digest magazines and paperbacks replaced them.

Many of the Doc Savage stories were written by Lester Dent although other writers also used the house name of “Kenneth Robeson.”

“The Doc Savage Magazine was printed by Street & Smith from March 1933 to the summer of 1949 to capitalize on the success of the Shadow magazine and followed by the original Avenger in September 1939. In all, 181 issues were published in various entries and alternative titles. Doc Savage became known to more contemporary readers when Bantam Books began reprinting the individual magazine novels in 1964, this time with covers by artist James Bama that featured a bronze-haired, bronze-skinned Doc Savage with an exaggerated widows’ peak, usually wearing a torn khaki shirt and under the by-line “Kenneth Robeson”.

“The stories were not reprinted in chronological order as originally published, though they did begin with the first adventure, The Man of Bronze. By 1967, Bantam was publishing one a month until 1990, when all 181 original stories (plus an unpublished novel, The Red Spider) had run their course.

“Author Will Murray produced seven more Doc Savage novels for Bantam Books from Lester Dent’s original outlines. Bantam also published a novel by Philip José Farmer, Escape From Loki (1991), which told the story of how in World War I Doc met the men who would become his five comrades.”

Doc Savage (real name Clark Savage Jr.) is a doctor, scientist, adventurer, detective, and polymath who “rights wrongs and punishes evildoers.” He also seems to have an inexhaustible pile of money to fund his adventures. If you’re in the mood for some old fashioned High Adventure, follow Doc Savage and his crew to South America where a strange, mysterious villain known as the Inca in Gray promotes war between two countries and uses a “dust of death” to kill his adversaries. Are you a fan of pulp fiction? GRADE: B

With Burt Bacharach’s death on February 8, 2023, this 2-CD set would seem to be the culmination of the Bacharach & Costello recordings. Disc 1 is a remastered version of Painted From Memory–20 years old–and now sounds even better than ever!

Disc 2 features not only great music but guest singers like Cassandra Wilson, Bill Frisell, Audra Mae, Don Byron, and Jenni Buldaur. Fittingly, the last song is sung by Burt Bacharach. If you love this type of moody, languid music and Elvis Costello’s slick lyrics, you’ll have a couple hours of delightful music to enchant you if you listen to The Songs of Bacharach & Costello. Are you a Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello fan? GRADE: A

Here’s the Wall Street Journal review: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-songs-of-bacharach-and-costello-an-unlikely-pairs-pop-poetry-d176063f

TRACK LISTING — DISC 1

Track Listing – Disc 2

“Antarctica” starts provocatively: “Every time the happily married woman went away, she wondered how it would feel to sleep with another man. That weekend, she was determined to find out. It was December; she felt a curtain closing on another years. She wanted to do this before she was too old. She was sure she would be disappointed.” (p. 1)

And, as you would suspect, things do not go well for the happily married woman.

“Love in the Tall Grass” involves a doctor, a young girl named Cordelia, and the ramifications of their affair discovered by the doctor’s wife. And, as you would suspect, things do not go well for the doctor, his wife, or Cordelia.

“Elizabeth Carso, aged nine. Disappeared from her home outside Boulder, Colorado, on Stepther 9th. Last seen wearing a red sweatshirt and blue jeans. If you have seen this person, please call... ” (p. 153). Frank Corso has to live with his embittered wife who blames him for his daughter’s disappearance. And, as you would suspect, things do not go well.

There’s no doubt that Claire Keegan is a talented writer. But I found Antarctica (1999) a little too grim. GRADE: B

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Antarctica — 1
Men and Women — 19
Where the Water’s Deepest — 35
Love in the Tall Grass — 43
Storms — 60
Ride If You Dare — 69
The Singing Cashier — 84
Burns — 92
Quare Name for a Boy — 101
Sisters — 109
The Scent of Winter — 133
The Burning Palms — 141
Passport Soup — 153
Close to the Water’s Edge — 162
You Can’t Be Too Careful — 171
The Ginger Rogers Sermon — 182
Acknowledgments — 203
Notes — 205
Biography — 207

If you haven’t watched PERRY MASON, SEASON 1 on HBO then you’re going to be in for a shock. This version is a far cry from the Perry Mason novels of Erle Stanley Gardner and the TV series featuring Raymond Burr as the defense attorney who never loses.

In Matthew Rhys’s version, Perry Mason starts out as a private investigator with a drinking problem and a failed marriage. He rides a motorcycle. Paul Drake is a black former cop (Chris Chalk). Della Street (Juliet Rylance) is a lesbian. The First Season concerned the kidnapping and death of a baby. In Season Two, it’s 1933 and two young Mexican men are charged with the gruesome murder of a rich, powerful oil baron.

If you’re willing to accept these massive changes from the Perry Masons of the past, there are eight episodes watching for your judgement. Are you a fan of some version of Perry Mason? GRADE: Incomplete

The target audience for Financial Feminist is obviously women. But much of the financial advice Tori Dunlap dispenses is gender-neutral. Tori Dunlap grew up with money smarts. She saved pennies in a Altoids tin to buy theater tickets. She watched her parents balance their checkbook and budget their income. But, as Tori grew older, she noticed many of her female friends didn’t have a clue about how to handle money.

While the boys Tori knew were taught about investing and the dynamics of money, the girls were counseled to restrain their spending and save. Tori addresses this disparity by presenting practical plans to reduce debt and control spending while planning for a solid financial future.

Sure, there are dozens of excellent financial advice books out there, but I found Tori Dunlap’s Financial Feminist feisty and forthright. If you want a breezy, provocative, and smart guide to how to handle your finances, here it is. How’s your financial situation? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction ix

Chapter 1 The Emotions of Money 2

Chapter 2 Spending 42

Chapter 3 The Financial Game Plan 78

Chapter 4 Debt 116

Chapter 5 Investing 150

Chapter 6 Earning 192

Chapter 7 Living a Financial Feminist Lifestyle 242

Epilogue 281

Acknowledgments 283

Glossary 287

Notes 293

I enjoyed Martin Puchner’s The Written World so much I decided to read his new book, Culture: The Story of US, From Cave Art to K-Pop. Puchner takes the reader around the world in this wide-ranging survey of world cultures.

My favorite chapter is Chapter 13: George Eliot Promotes the Science of the Past. I learned a lot about Mary Ann Evans (aka, “George Eliot”) that I didn’t know. I didn’t know she translated the works of German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach. I discovered she read Hegel and incorporated some of his ideas about History into Middlemarch (1871). And I learned she wrote an essay entitled “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists” that I will have to track down and read.

If you’re in the mood for a breezy tour of thousands of years of cultural development all over the world, Martin Puchner’s Culture is your ticket. GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Preface: How culture works — xi

Introduction: Inside the Chauvet Cave, 35,000 BCE — xii

Queen Nefertiti and her faceless god — 1

Plato burns his tragedy and invents a history — 23

King Ashoka sends a message to the future — 36

A south Asian goddess in Pompeii — 53

A Buddhist pilgrim in search of ancient traces — 70

The Pillow Book and some perils of cultural diplomacy — 87

When Baghdad became a storehouse of wisdom — 105

The Queen of Ethiopia welcomes the raiders of the ark — 123

One Christian mystic and the three revivals of Europe — 140

The Aztec capital faces its European enemies and admirers — 164

A Portuguese sailor writes a global epic — 185

Enlightenment in Saint-Domingue and in a Parisian salon — 206

George Eliot promotes the science of the past — 227

A Japanese wave takes the world by storm — 246

The drama of Nigerian independence — 266

Epilogue: Will there be a library in 2114 CE? — 287

Acknowledgements — 305

Notes — 309

Index — 337