Diane and I drove to Shea’s Performing Arts Center to see Jagged Little Pill. I liked the original Alanis Morissette album from 1995. This musical, with additional Morissette music, centers around Mary Jane Healy, an apparently successful Connecticut mother of a son who has just been accepted to Harvard, and a socially-committed adopted daughter, and a workaholic husband. But Mary Jane, after being injured in an automobile accident, has become addicted to opioid painkillers. Things start to spiral out of control.

This touring company included the star of the Broadway production, Heidi Blickenstaff as Mary Jane. Blickenstaff delivers an incredible performance in a role that demands an astonishing vocal range and a wide dramatic range from comedy to despair. Chris Hoch, as Mary Jane’s absentee husband, finally realizes his wife has a problem. Lauren Chanel, as the troubled adopted daughter, shows the vulnerability and confusion of a 16-year-old. Dillon Klena, the Harvard accepted son, finds himself in a disastrous situation. I also liked Jade McLeod as Jo, a lesbian dealing with a religious, unaccepting mother. Great cast!

My only quibble is that Diablo Cody’s book for this musical doesn’t generate many surprises. If you like Alanis Morissette’s emotional songs and moody lyrics, you’ll enjoy Jagged Little Pill: The Musical. GRADE: B+

Cast recording:

At the 2021 Grammy Awards, the cast recording album won Best Musical Theater Album.

In the fall of 2022, Atlantic records released one new, stand-alone track featuring Heidi Blickenstaff and the original Broadway cast singing “Uninvited.”

There have been plenty of Science Fiction Private Eyes (here’s a list of 55 of them). Add to that number Cal Sounder who specializes in cases involving Titans. Titans are humans who have taken the wonder drug T7 that not only cures most diseases and injuries, it extends the Life of the beneficiary to near-immortal levels.

The police have called Cal Sounder in when a Titan is found dead in his apartment from a gunshot wound. Suicide…or murder? Sounder decides it’s murder and undertakes his wild investigation: “…a scientist murdered under an alias, a cage match, a gunshot wound, a dead lounge singer, a dead police officer, an exploded police station, stolen internal organs containing encrypted nuclear grade kompromat, and my ex-girlfriends cousin….mutliated, bleeding, and pissed off on my office carpet.” (p. 191) As you see, a lot happens in Titanium Noir.

The future with genetically enhanced Titans is not a pleasant place. If you can basically live forever, you have plenty of ways to become immensely rich. And corrupt. Cal Sounder takes a lot of punishment from various suspects in Titanium Noir, but also delivers his share of violence. If you’re a fan of noir and SF, this blend may agree with you. Are you fan of noir? GRADE: B

John Madden’s NFL video game has been around for over 30 years. Madden NFL (known as John Madden Football from 1988 until 1993) is an American football video game series developed by EA Tiburon for EA Sports. 

Originally, John Madden was on the cover of the game until 1994. Then, Madden NFL started featuring NFL players on the cover of the game. No Buffalo Bills player ever made the cover of Madden NFL…until now.

Buffalo Bills Quarterback Josh Allen was chosen to be on the cover of Madden NFL 24 along with another First: Buffalo Bills fans (aka, Bills Mafia). No fans ever appeared on the cover of Madden NFL until now.

Some Bills fans are worried about the Madden Curse (some players who have been on the cover of Madden NFL found themselves injured or playing sub-par). I think Josh Allen and Bills Mafia will have a great season! What do you think?

About a week ago, Jeff Meyerson mentioned the delight of Trader Joe’s Brownie Crisp Coffee Ice Cream Sandwiches. Jeff made them sound so good I had to do some research. Here’s what I found:

“When you eat ice cream, it’s best to put it in a bowl. When you drink coffee, it’s best to put it in a cup. What if we told you it was possible to enjoy both ice cream and coffee without a bowl or a cup-and also with some brownies added into the mix? It seems like something only achievable in dreams, but Trader Joe’s Brownie Crisp Coffee Ice Cream Sandwiches make those dreams a reality.

We first take two TJ’s Brownie Crisps. Then, we take coffee ice cream-made with coffee syrup, Colombian coffee extract, and espresso grounds-and put a scoop between the brownies. The best part? The ice cream softens up the crisps just enough to give them a deliciously fudgy texture.

The chocolaty chunks in the brownie crisps and the espresso grounds in the ice cream make for some sophisticated flavors you might not expect in an ice cream sandwich–but ones you’ll be overjoyed to encounter. And though these lil’ Sandwiches are bursting with coffee flavor, we don’t blame you if you want to pair it with even more coffee. What could be better than an ice cream sandwich and a glass of Trader Joe’s Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate?”

Well, that description sold me. I drove over to Trader Joe’s and bought a box of Brownie Crisp Coffee Ice Cream Sandwiches. I love coffee and I love brownies so this was a perfect blend of tastes I enjoy. Excellent! You should try Brownie Crisp Coffee Ice Cream Sandwiches, too! GRADE: A

Here are two compilation CDs that seek to capture the essence of 1976. Very little overlap. “Saturday Night” by the Bay City Rollers appears on both CDs. I like the ROCK ON CD compilations because they list the Chart Positions of the songs included.

I found it interesting that BILLBOARD TOP HITS 1976 has “Theme From S.W.A.T.” while ROCK ON 1976 has “Baretta’s Theme (Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow) showing TV’s impact on the year’s pop music.

We’re at the beginning of the Disco Years in 1976. Do you remember these songs? Any favorites? GRADE: B (for both)

TRACKLIST:

Bay City Rollers–Saturday Night 2:54

Gary Wright–Love Is Alive 3:25

K.C. & The Sunshine Band*–(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty 3:04

Dr. Hook–Only Sixteen 2:43

The Sylvers–Boogie Fever 3:25

Orleans–Still The One 3:52

Bellamy Brothers–Let Your Love Flow [rerecording] 2:48

Rhythm Heritage–Baretta’s Theme (Keep Your Eye On The Sparrow) 3:13

Silver Convention–Get Up And Boogie 2:45

Dorothy Moore–Misty Blue 3:35

Starbuck (2)–Moonlight Feels Right 3:34

Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan*–Sweet Thing 3:19

TRACKLIST:

Just a few short weeks ago, I read and reviewed The Wild Adventures of Cthulhu, Volume 1 by Will Murray (you can read my review here). The Wild Adventures of Cthulhu, Volume 2 collects more of Will Murray’s Lovecraftian stories.

I enjoyed “God General Nakji” where Raymond Redpath, a medicine man, (“I walk with Wakiya medicine. Very powerful. My Lakota name is Ray Thunder Cloud” p. 2), is recruited by Cryptic Events Evaluation Section to investigate an incident in North Korea.

A careless vacationer stumbles over a creepy event in “Evacuation Day.” You would think some people would realize Dunwich isn’t quite Disneyland.

“In The Lightless Chambers of N’gah-Kthun” takes a Cryptic Events Evaluation Section agent to a distant planet which might be Cthulhu’s original home.

If you’re in the mood for some Lovecraftian stories, check out The Wild Adventures of Cthulhu, Volume 1 and 2! GRADE: B

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction — ix

God General Nakji — 1

Evacuation Day — 33

The Hindmarsh Abomination — 53

Moonday — 71

Smoking Mirror — 109

In The Lightless Chambers of N’gah-Kthun — 125

The Purple Emperor — 161

The Cow-Men of Coburn — 169

The Arcade — 189

The Wild Ones of Weirport — 201

SOURCES — 241

ABOUT THE AUTHOR — 243

ABOUT THE ARTIST — 247

Diane loves HALLMARK movies. She watches at least one HALLMARK movie per week. I’m not that enthusiastic about HALLMARK movies mostly because of the formulaic and predictable plots. However, I will watch an occasional HALLMARK MYSTERY MOVIE with Diane. Yes, some of those can be formulaic and predictable, too. But on some occasion, a HALLMARK MYSTERY MOVIE can prove to be entertaining. That was the case with the new silly The Dancing Detective: A Deadly Tango.

When a high-profile CEO (brother to a U. S. Senator) is murdered on the eve of his company’s corporate event in Malta – a high stakes ballroom competition between senior executives – Detective Bailey is sent undercover as one of the contestants to find the killer.

The murder victim runs an international dancing school. He insisted on a dance competition each year at the company’s corporate event where members of the management team would be judged and promotions and demotions resulted.

Detective Constance Bailey (Lacey Chabert) is a brilliant police detective who prefers to work alone. She’s been through three partners in three years because she doesn’t play well with others. Bailey is over-due for promotion, but needs to solve a Big Case to get it. Her Captain reluctantly agrees to send Bailey to Malta to help INTERPOL solve this murder at the request of the Senator. Bailey is supposed to go undercover as a recent management hire of the international dancing school.

The only problem? Bailey can’t dance. To convincingly compete, Bailey must team up with charismatic and free-spirited performer Sebastian Moore (Will Kemp). But with a killer on the loose and a growing list of suspects, it’s going to take more than a little fancy footwork to solve this case.  Lacey Chabert and Will Kemp have great on-screen chemistry and I appreciated the humor of Sebastian Moore claiming he was a great detective because he watched COLUMBO. Detective Bailey teases Moore by calling him “Poirot” and “Inspector Morris.” Set the bar low, and you’ll enjoy this twinkle-toed mystery! GRADE: B

Yesterday I reviewed Charles Stross’s Season of Skulls, written during the Pandemic where Stress decided to attempt Something Different and mixed a Regency Romance with a Lovecraftian Time Travel adventure. Today, I’m reviewing Martha Wells’s Witch King that blends magic and Epic Fantasy and feudal warfare into a compelling story. Martha Wells, best known for her Murderbot series (you can read my reviews, here, here, here, here, here, and here), where a SECURITY UNIT robot who hacks his governor module and goes rogue.  This is a Far Cry from Wells’s latest novel.

Witch King opens with a scary scene as the Witch King, Kai, finds himself “dead” and buried in a tower of water (water makes it hard for witches to work their magic) with his companion, Ziede, another type of witch. Together, they escape to find out how they “died” and who buried them.

I suspect the Pandemic led Martha Wells to forgo another episode in the Murderbot series and to tackle this long, complex, and exciting Fantasy novel, instead. If you’re in the mood for some action/adventure Fantasy in the George R. R. Martin and Robert Jordan style, you might want to give Witch King a try. GRADE: B+

Russell Letson of LOCUS magazine (May 2023) wrote that Charles Stross’s new novel, Season of Skulls, is “a mash-up of the Regency gothic and Lovecraftian horrors and intrigue-thriller variations of his Laundry world.” (p. 18) That about sums it up.

In his ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS at the end of the book, Stross delineates how Season of Skulls came to be written during the Pandemic. Stross writes that he was stalled…and then decided to mix Regency romance elements and time travel with the usual spooky aspects of the Laundry world: vampires, sorcerers, secret agents, sinister cultists, horrific alien creatures, and undead powers who want to rule Earth.

Whether you will enjoy reading Season of Skulls depends on your tolerance for England of 1816 with its pirates, highwaymen, evil scientists, and monsters. Magic is in the air, but the air of London “stank of coal smoke and sewage which nearly covered the even more noisome stench of decaying food waste.”

If you’re a fan of Charles Stross’s Laundry series, this oddity may both puzzle and delight you. I, for one, prefer the action take place in the 21st Century. GRADE: B