Diana: The Musical was supposed to open on Broadway in the Spring of 2020. Then the Pandemic hit and Broadway closed down. Netflix approached the producers of Diana: The Musical and negotiated a deal for the play to be filmed and then shown on the Netflix streaming platform.

Christopher Ashley, director, filmed this performance in the summer 2020, in an empty theater–no audience–with Covid-19 protocols in place. Ashley is also a Tony Award winner for his staging of the Sept. 11 musical “Come From Away,” and the director of an excellent filmed version which is streaming on Apple TV+. Highly recommended!

Ashley knows how to make a theatrical production feel intense, compelling, and involving for the home-viewing Netflix audience with Diana: The Musical. With 39 incredible, inspired, wickedly sly on-stage costume changes, Diana: The Musical pulls a lot of magic tricks that even Cher would be proud of. When de Waal steps into Diana’s behemoth pouf of a wedding gown, it’s hard to figure out how she did it in the blink of an eye. Costume designer William Ivey Long recreates dozens of Diana’s most famous outfits, including the incredible sweater with the little sheep on it.

Pacing is a problem. For example, Diana (Jeanna de Waal) gives birth to both of her children–William and Harry–with Prince Charles (Roe Hartrampf) in attendance during a single song.  Then there’s Charles admitting he’d been unfaithful to Diana with Camilla Parker Bowles (Erin Davie). Everything seems rushed in this 2-hour performance. The music is basic pop with the intension of moving the action. If you’re interested in the Royals and Princess Diana, you’ll enjoy Diana: The Musical. Not a great performance, but entertaining. GRADE: B

TRACK LIST:

1. Prologue
2. Underestimated
3. The Worst Job In England
4. This Is How Your People Dance
5. Snap, Click
6. Whatever Love Means Anyway
7. I Will
8. The World Fell In Love
9. Happiness / Simply Breathe
10. She Moves In The Most Modern Ways
11. Diana (The Rage)
12. As I Love You
13. I Miss You Most On Sundays
14. Pretty, Pretty Girl
15. Here Comes James Hewitt
16. Him And Her (And Him And Her) / Just Dance
17. Secrets And Lies
18. The Main Event
19. Whatever Love Means Anyway
20. Pretty, Pretty Girl
21. The Words Came Pouring Out
22. The Dress
23. An Officer’s Wife
24. If (Light Of The World)

I’m always fascinated by writers writing about the writing process. Alice McDermott shares her thoughts on the craft she has been practicing for decades. In a bold move, McDermott quotes an entire chapter of Nabokov’s Bend Sinister to make a point!

In books like What About the Baby? authors reveal who influenced them. With McDermott, Fitzgerald, Henry James, and E. M. Forster show up quite a bit. Eudora Welty chimes in occasionally. My favorite chapter is “Story,” where McDermott analyzes what makes a good story…or a dud. McDermott continues her take on story in the chapter “What About the Baby?” asking the key fiction question: “What is this story about?”

McDermott displays again and again in the pages of What About the Baby? that she has studied the writing process and analyzed what works and what doesn’t. Along the way, McDermott quotes some wonderful writers offering their perspectives on the creative process. This is a book that will provide plenty to think about long after you read the last page. Excellent! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Foreword: Alice McDermott Speaks in Italics Tony Earley ix

What I Expect 3

Story 23

Sentencing 41

What About the Baby? 67

Mary McCarthy 83

Only Connect (Eventually) 87

William Rehnquist, Robinson Crusoe, Rabbit Ears, and Something About Passion: Advice from Me to Me 113

An Unreasonable Degree of Sympathy 135

Starting Over 141

Coaching 155

Faith and Literature 169

All Drama Is Family Drama 189

Voice-overs 191

Things 207

Remembrance of Things That Never Happened: The Art of Memoir, the Art of Fiction 213

The Buffalo Bills are 17-point favorites over the Houston Texans. Vegas obviously thinks the Bills will run up the score. I’m not so sure. Rain is in the forecast and it could be breezy. How will your favorite NFL do today?

Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage has a running time of 97 minutes but it seems shorter. Journalist Eddie Brock ( Tom Hardy) is infected with a symbiote who calls itself Venom. When Venom manifests itself, it looks like a humanoid out of H. P. Lovecraft: plenty of tentacles and sharp teeth!

The story this time involves a serial killer, Cletus Kasaday ( Woody Harrelson), willing to be interviewed by Eddie Brock before Kasaday is executed for his multiple murders. Brock gets too close to Kasaday who gets infected by Venom and has his own symbiote who calls itself Carnage. Carnage appears to be stronger and more powerful than Venom.

Of course, carnage results as Kasaday/Carnage break out of prison. And this sets up the epic fight of Venom vs. Carnage in–of all places–a church.

Once again, Michelle Williams, on of the great actresses of our time, is wasted as Eddie Brock’s on-again-off-again girlfriend, Anne Weying. Director Andy Serkis gives Williams nothing to do. Kasady’s girlfriend, Frances Barrison (aka, Shriek), played by Naomie Harris, is similarly under utilized. Wall Street Journal movie reviewer, Joe Morgenstern, wrote the about Venom: “He’s the H. L. Mencken of symbiotes.” That’s about the size of it. GRADE: C+

Robert P. Mills’s The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, Tenth Series anthology doesn’t have the fireworks of his stellar The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, Ninth Series (you can read my review here), but several stories stand out. Daniel Keyes returns from the triumph of “Flowers for Algernon” with the moving story of a troubled youth with powers needed by the Future in “Crazy Maro.”

I’m a big fan of Eric Frank Russell’s work and “A Divvil with the Women” features his sly humor and cunning wit. Perhaps the best known story in this anthology is Ward Moore’s frequently anthologized “The Fellow Who Married the Maxill Girl,” a story that offers some hard choices to its characters. All in all, The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, Tenth Series is a solid anthology with quality stories. GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• 9 • Introduction (The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, Tenth Series) • (1961) • essay by Robert P. Mills
• 13 • Nikita Eisenhower Jones • (1960) • novelette by Robert F. Young
• 33 • Who Dreams of Ivy • (1960) • short story by Will Mohler [as by Will Worthington]
• 50 • Mine Own Ways • (1960) • short story by Richard McKenna
• 68 • The Rainbow Gold • (1959) • short story by Jane Rice
• 80 • Crazy Maro • (1960) • novelette by Daniel Keyes
• 104 • Something • (1960) • short story by Allen Drury
• 112 • It’s a Great Big Wonderful Universe • (1960) • short story by Vance Aandahl
• 116 • Man Overboard • (1960) • novelette by John Collier
• 143 • The Blind Pilot • (1960) • short story by Nathalie Henneberg (trans. of Au pilote aveugle 1959) [as by Charles Henneberg]
• 162 • A Divvil with the Women • (1960) • short story by Eric Frank Russell (variant of Heart’s Desire 1955) [as by Niall Wilde]
• 168 • The Martyr • (1960) • novelette by Poul Anderson
• 189 • Double, Double, Toil and Trouble • (1960) • short story by Holley Cantine
• 207 • Après Nous • (1960) • short story by Avram Davidson
• 209 • Interbalance • (1960) • short story by Katherine MacLean
• 218 • Infinity • (1960) • poem by Rosser Reeves
• 222 • The Replacement • (1960) • short story by Robert Murray
• 235 • The Fellow Who Married the Maxill Girl • (1960) • novelette by Ward Moore

The Police were one of the top selling group in the 1980s. Plenty of Platinum records! As Sting tells it, the group took a “pause” after their Synchronicity Tour  (1983–1984). During that time, Sting released his solo album and the other band members engaged in separate projects.

The Police reunited briefly for the Amnesty International A Conspiracy of Hope Tour in June 1986. The atmosphere was tense. According to Sting, “It was a very symbolic moment. We’d broken up, then sort of reformed to do the Amnesty Tour. U2 were there as well and as we closed our set with “Invisible Sun“, Bono came out and sang it with us. And then we symbolically handed our instruments over to U2, because they were about to become what we were — the biggest band in the world”.

Every Breath You Take: The Singles is essentially a Greatest Hits album. Are you a fan of The Police? Any favorites here? GRADE: B+

TRACK LIST:

All tracks are written by Sting.

With Apple TV broadcasting their version of Isaac Asimov’s classic Foundation, I thought I would read the first anthology in the Isaac Asimov’s Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction: INTERGALACTIC EMPIRES. Ironically, my favorite story in this anthology is from 1951: an early Dominic Flandry story, “Honorable Enemies.” The Galactic Empire is slowly collapsing, but agents like Flandry attempt to prop up the civilization despite the efforts of alien enemies to hasten its fall.

I enjoyed Eric Frank Russell’s cunning and humorous SF story, “Diabologic” where a human causes confusion and chaos among aliens. Perhaps the most famous story in this anthology is Cordwainer Smith’s classic, “A Planet Named Shoyol” where justice is applied with infinite harshness by the Instrumentality. If you’re looking for an anthology of stories about Galactic Empires in various states of decline, I recommend Isaac Asimov’s Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction: INTERGALACTIC EMPIRES. GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• “Introduction: Empires” (Isaac Asimov) — 7
• “Cycles”
  • “Chalice of Death” (Robert Silverberg) — 13
  • “Orphan of the Void” (Lloyd Biggle, Jr.) — 47
  • “Down to the Worlds of Men” (Alexei Panshin) — 92
• “Governance”
  • “Ministry of Disturbance” (H. Beam Piper) –122
  • “Blind Alley” (Isaac Asimov) — 163
  • “A Planet Named Shayol” (Cordwainer Smith) — 186
• “Concerns”
  • “Diabologic” (Eric Frank Russell) — 224
  • “Fighting Philosopher” (E. B. Cole) — 245
  • “Honorable Enemies” (Poul Anderson) — 281

Isaac Asimov’s Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction is a series of ten themed paperback science fiction anthologies edited by  Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh, a companion set to the twelve volume Isaac Asimov’s Magical Worlds of Fantasy, produced by the same editors. It was published by Signet/New American Library from 1983 to 1990.^[1]

Each volume in the series featured stories devoted to a different science fictional theme, as indicated in the individual volume titles. Most volumes also included an introduction by Asimov.

The series:

1. Intergalactic Empires (1983)
2. The Science Fictional Olympics (1984)
3. Supermen (1984)
4. Comets (1986)
5. Tin Stars (1986)
6. Neanderthals (1987)
7. Space Shuttles (1987)
8. Monsters (1988)
9. Robots (1989)
10. Invasions (1990)

Those of you who have read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy will wonder how far the Apple TV 10-episode version that just started last week with the release of the first two episodes (new episodes will appear every Friday until November 19) will vary from Asimov’s original concept. In Asimov’s novel, mathematician Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) develops a predictive model called “psychohistory.” Seldon runs into trouble with the Galactic rulers who fear the conclusions of Seldon’s model: that the Empire will collapse within 500 years followed by 30,000 years of Dark Ages.

Episode One opens with Lou Llobell as Gaal Dornick, Hari’s protégé, a self-taught young woman from a planet where the pursuit of knowledge is considered heresy, brought to the Empire’s capitol, Trantor, to disprove Seldon’s theories. Dornick’s life is threatened if she finds Seldon’s predictions valid.

Isaac Asimov based his Foundation series on the fall of the Roman Empire with the twist that technology and psychohistory could limit some of the damage of a collapsing Galactic Empire. After watching two episodes, I confess that this TV series is visually appealing. I like the cast. I’m in for the duration. GRADE: INCOMPLETE

Woodward and Costa’s Peril opens with General Milley calling his counterpart, General Li of China, to reassure Li that the U.S. is NOT about to launch an attack. Intelligence services in China, Russia, and Iran were alarmed at the prospect that Trump would attack them in an attempt to stay in power.

Peril is one of those books that you have to occasionally put aside for a few minutes because of the horrors revealed on seemingly every page. There’s the scenes of Trump watching the January 6, 2021 Insurrection while his phone is blowing up with calls from the Capitol begging for assistance. Very disturbing.

And then there’s the strategy of convincing Mike Pence to refuse to certify the results of the Election and throw the contest into the House of Representatives where the Republicans would make Trump the President…again.

Our country, our democracy came very close to disaster in so many ways! Woodward and Costa document the schemes that almost brought our Government down. Scary stuff! GRADE: A

After delivering a 35-0 beat-down to the Miami Dolphins, the Bills face the Washington Football Team in a windy, but sold-out, Highmark Stadium. Many Bills fans were hoping to see the return of former Bills QB Ryan Fitzpatrick, but Fitz has a hip injury so we’ll be seeing backup QB Taylor Heinicke. The Bills are 7-point favorites. How will your favorite NFL team do today?