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Donnie De & The Star Fires / Donnie Dee & The Starfires / Don DeFilippo from Poughkeepsie, Upstate New York. Elusive picture sleeve added today to 45catI'm Sticking With You

A scene from Abel Gance's epic drama 'La Roue' (1923).The time has come, or is at least close upon us.On Saturday, Sept. 28, starting at noon I'll attempt to create music for Able Gance's neglected masterwork 'La Roue' (1923)—all seven hours of it, all in one marathon screening.The venue is the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. Tickets are $25 per person for this immersive cinematic experience, which will run from …

The gondolas of London. Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), Describing the horse-drawn hansom cab

I am fascinated with monastic communities. I recently watched a short documentary about one.[1] Mount Athos is a somewhat inaccessible mountain on the Athos peninsula in northeastern Greece governed as an autonomous region by a community of twenty monasteries and various small and single occupancy hermitages. The architecture of the monasteries is beautiful, and the art decorating them and stored there is priceless. They feature, however, a more traditional monastic …

A break in the rain meant I could cook outdoors for once!

Sandwiched between two perpetually murderous nations (Germany and russia), Poland has had its fair share of tragedy over the course of its history. It is situated at the western edge of the region termed Bloodlands by historian Timothy Snyder who described the reign of destruction inflicted by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. At various points in time, Poland ceased to exist as a state, having been parceled up and …

A versatile mushroom chili recipe so good you won't miss the meat. In fact, the finely chopped or ground mushrooms taste like meat. And you can add meat if you like! Mushroom Chili is the latest post on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook.

subtext: in my opinion, and for companies (and their users) that want a good balance between protecting their core business with Open Source ideals. Following up to my thoughts on the case for funding Open Source, there is a second topic I want to discuss in more detail: Open Source and commercialization. As our founder likes to say: Open Source is not a business model. And indeed it really isn't. …

[tv] Why Was the ‘Miami Vice’ Pilot So Good? … A look at how the 80s crime series was developed. ‘But it wasn’t just the pilot. Miami Vice season one was one of the best freshman seasons of that decade. It churned out one knockout hour after another (including the gemlike perfection of “Evan,” starring a then-baby-faced William Russ as a closeted gay cop). It sparked depiction-vs.-endorsement arguments about its …

Shocking when it was first staged at the Royal Court in 1956 where outrage was focused on the ferocity and candor of central character Jimmy Porter’s working class disillusionment and violent inner life, John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger is now just as problematic, not least because of its deeply misogynistic tone and Jimmy’s overtly […]

Each year I like to run Castle Ravenloft, either through the original I6 Ravenloft adventure from 1983 or the updated Castle Ravenloft from Curse of Strahd. While I've typically run Ravenloft using 5e, in 2023 I ran it with the excellent "old school feel, modern sensibilities" Shadowdark RPG. It was a perfect fit. Shadowdark captures the feeling of dread and horror in Castle Ravenloft better than I've ever seen it. …

We had our first rainy day in several weeks today. As such, our kids were a little on the bored side and needed some help from me on what they could do. Some of my ideas were: Get out the paint sets Read a book Read a book to your younger sister/brother Do a puzzle Play with legos Sit outside and listen to the rain. Sit outside and listen to …

I have wanted to read Red Dwarf since I learned that there was a novelisation of one of my favourite series. In this case, since about 1995 when my cousin showed me their Red Dwarf books, then told me I couldn’t breathe near them. How I coveted them! Fast forward many, many years and I’d… Continue reading Finally Reading Red Dwarf

Another functional model of a file system, with code examples in C#. This article is part of a series about Zippers. In this one, I port the FSZipper data structure from the Learn You a Haskell for Great Good! article Zippers. A word of warning: I'm assuming that you're familiar with the contents of that article, so I'll skip the pedagogical explanations; I can hardly do it better that it's …

Saturday saw the loss of a monster perch - biggest one I've seen - a few (a lot of) casts later I was looking at a double-figure pike consolation prize - but that pinged off the hook as well. Not my day! I was all set for a rematch yesterday, but the river was rising & red, plus it was set to piss down all day - only a madman …