Warning: There will be four macro photos all of the same Monarch Butterfly. I was proud of how well these manual focus shots came out so I went hog wild and flooded the Photo of the Day with them. Apologies.
04SEP2018 – Photo of the Day
Month: September 2018
Congratulations to Kevin J. Anderson and Sarah A. Hoyt for their Dragon Awards Win
Dragon Award for Best Alternate History Novel went to “Uncharted” by Kevin J. Anderson, KJA and Sarah A. Hoyt.
As one of the Sad Puppies, Sarah sacrificed a great deal of her status and probably a good chunk of her friends in science fiction circles along with some significant measure of her peace of mind by bucking the CHORFs of the science fiction SJWs. Thanks to the Sad Puppies a goodly number of people were reintroduced to readable science fiction long after they believed it had all been reduced to boring unreadable marxist, intersectionalist, message fiction, drivel. Thanks to the Puppies and especially Larry Correia the Dragon Awards were founded and have provided a sane alternative to the self-parody that the Hugo Awards have devolved into. Requiescat in pace.
So good for them and if you are looking for good stuff to read check to see who was nominated for the Dragons http://awards.dragoncon.org/2018-ballot/ . But for pity’s sake don’t even glance at the list of Hugo nominees. No man can hope to look into the gorgon’s face and survive!
High Top Mountain – Sturgill Simpson – A Country Music Review – Part 2
I ‘ve now had a chance to listen to High Top Mountain a good bit and I can say without a doubt that this is my favorite album by Sturgill Simpson. And that’s because it’s country music. He isn’t experimenting here with other genres and sounds. It’s straight up classic country with plenty of energy, fun lyrics and excellent steel guitar. For me the best songs are:
- Life Ain’t Fair and the World is Mean
- You Can Have the Crown
- Sitting Here Without You
- Time After All
But honestly, I think they’re all good. Now how rare is that? Most albums have three or four strong songs and the rest weak. This album has twelve songs and they range from excellent to good. They vary from ballads to up tempo rockabilly. I’m just disappointed that his later albums don’t appeal to me as much. Maybe these were all the country songs he wanted to make. Well if that’s so, then I’m glad he made this album and that I found it. I think it’s a keeper.
03SEP2018 – Quote of the Day
Here’s a small dose of hippie, man. Don’t worry, a little goes a long way for me.
“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between a causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality.”
Alan Watts
03SEP2018 – Photo of the Day
Panbowl – Sturgill Simpson – A Short Country Music Review
Yesterday I put up a post about Sturgill Simpson’s album Big Top Mountain. I related how I had not loved his two other albums, “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music” and “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth” but that on the former album I thought that the song Panbowl was extremely good. This post is to expand on that comment. One of the things that country music can do is tell a story. In fact, I think that possibly the best country songs are the ones that do that best. Panbowl seems to be an autobiographical remembrance of youth and family. It feels to me like a completely heartfelt expression of anguish at the loss of the simple joys of being a child in a family. He paints a vivid picture of an extended family that provided love and belonging and what it means to lose this.
Admittedly I am attracted to strong sentiment so that might be the reason I rate this song so highly, but I think many country music fans will think this is an excellent song. In any case I consider it the best song of his I’ve heard and this is because it seems honest and describes something I think is admirable, love of family. Check it out and see if you agree.
02SEP2018 – Quote of the Day
“In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep.”
Socrates
02SEP2018 – Photo of the Day
Monarch Butterfly Caterpillar, Sony A7 III, Minolta 200mm f\4 lens
High Top Mountain – Sturgill Simpson – A Country Music Review – Part 1
There is a lot of bad music out there. And there is a lot of bad country music. One of the ways I try to find good music is by association with other good music. Case in point, a friend of mine at work told me about Colter Wall so I checked out his music and really liked it. One of his songs is a cover of the old song Fraulein. On that song is a second singer and looking him up it turned out to be Tyler Childers. So I checked out his music and really liked it. Looking over Childer’s album Purgatory I noticed it was produced by Sturgill Simpson. Now I knew of Simpson. I had his “Metamodern Sounds In Country Music” album and there was one song on that album called Panbowl that was extremely good but overall I was undecided if I was a fan. But now I decided to take another look at Sturgill’s catalog. I listened to his latest album, “A Sailor’s Guide To Earth,” and didn’t really care for it. Then I went back to his first album, “High Top Mountain,” and really liked it a lot. I’ll listen to a lot of it for the next few days and then I’ll finish up this review. But I can say already it’s a solid country album and Simpson is a good singer songwriter. The fact that I didn’t care for his later stuff as much might mean High Top Mountain is more or less all of his stuff I’ll like. That’s okay. Even finding a whole album you like is a feat worth noting. This album is definitely a win.
Galaxy’s Edge (Volume 6) – Prisoners of Darkness – A Science Fiction Book Review
Galaxy’s Edge (Volume 5) – Sword of the Legion – A Science Fiction Book Review
For the readers who are unfamiliar with the Galaxy’s Edge series let me say up front that I am a big fan of the story and if you want to hear about the beginning of the series then go back to my review of Book 1 – Legionnaire. For the rest of you who have been following my reviews then let me start off by saying that “Prisoners of Darkness” is good stuff. Several of the story threads are advanced and the plots and characters are interesting and fun. Several new reveals occur that show additional complexity to one of the newer threads. And the newer aspects of the plot seem to be leading in a totally unexpected direction. All really good stuff. But here we are at Book Six and I’m getting the idea that maybe there will never be an end (at least not within my lifetime). Of course, I’m being slightly facetious but what I’m getting at is I think authors are building up a fictional universe that they can continue to spin into different story arcs. And that’s alright. Jason Anspach and Nick Cole have built a very entertaining universe. I would say if we were comparing the Star Wars universe to Galaxy’s Edge that the latter is orders of magnitude better in every way. The characters, plots and atmosphere are far superior.
But back to the story. Prisoners of Darkness has as one of its threads, the rescue operation of one of the Legion’s officers from a prison planet. The action is a result of the aftermath of the Battle of Tarrago where the Legion ignored the orders of the House of Reason and destroyed the critical assets of the Tarrago shipyards to deny them to the Empire. The imprisoned officer learns some important aspects of the Republic’s relation to some criminal enterprises. These will seemingly have a bearing on how the Legion will interact with the civilian government of the Republic, namely the House of Reason. And that’s to the good. For some time, it has seemed unreasonable that the Legion would defer to the corrupt and incompetent leadership of the Republic. But come to think of it, that seems to be the case in our own conflicted and afflicted republic.
Another aspect of the story is the conflicted allegiance of Captain Ford. His time as an independent agent has loosened his loyalty to the Legion and the danger to his kidnapped crew members tears him away from the Legion responsibilities that command Chun and his team to risk a desperate rescue mission for the sake of a Legion brother. This ambivalence will probably rear its head again when the Legion and the Empire come to terms with the common threat they will both face farther down the road.
Okay, so the story is great and I’m loving the series and I can’t wait to see where this goes. Just be aware this isn’t even close to finished. So, make sure you’re in it for the long haul. You have been warned.
Galaxy’s Edge (Volume 7) – Turning Point – A Science Fiction Book Review