It’s the day after Thanksgiving, 2019, and that makes it okay for me to turn my sights to Christmas, because letting Christmas intrude on Thanksgiving is evil.
One thing that makes Christmas the joy it is are the many carols out there. But there’s one in particular that seems to inspire musicians to come out with the most epic versions imaginable: “Carol of the Bells.” There’s something about that song that shouts, “Play with me!” So I’m gonna play with exploring different versions of it that can only be described as epic.
Continue reading The Christmas Carol Everyone Loves To Play With
As a young French composer in his mid-twenties, Joseph Maurice Ravel joined with a number of other artists, musicians, poets, and assorted friends in Paris to form a group called “The Hooligans” ( Les Apaches in French, which makes you wonder about how a certain Native American tribe got its name). This was at the turn of the century—the 19th to 20th century, that is. Imagining the antics of twenty-something creative souls getting together makes the name they chose somehow appropriate. Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky were also members at one time or another.
by Guest Blogger Doug Gibson
Doug Gibson is a colleague of mine who has written published stories, is a retired editor of a city newspaper, and maintains his blog 
In 1786, Prince Charles Edward Stuart fought the Battle of Culloden to make good his claim to the throne of England and Scotland. His backers were called Jacobites. He failed in that attempt and had to flee the British armies multiple times until he finally ended up fleeing on a boat to the Island of Skye.
With George Miller’s announcement of three more Mad Max films on their way, I began to reminisce about the four films that have been released so far. Three of them star Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky and one stars Tom Hardy as Max…sort of. In reality, there was very little of Mad Max in Mad Max: Fury Road, and Hardy as Max didn’t end up doing a whole lot, considering the movie is named after him.
I make no secret of the fact that I loathe superhero movies. Christopher Reeve’s Superman was fun. Tim Burton’s two Batmans were typically and deliciously offbeat. Christopher Nolan’s Batmans were well done too. The occasional superhero movie was fun escapist cinema that I could enjoy along with everyone else.
But somewhere along the way, I got burned out by the endless stream of superhero movies. I haven’t even seen Nolan’s third Batman. It matters not to me how great the movie might be, I’m sick of the endless barrage! 
In the third and final installment of my Star Trek movie-themed articles, we’ll explore that bugaboo of 21st century Hollywood as it applies to Star Trek: the reboot.
This is a continuation of my article “To Boldy Film What No Man Has Filmed Before,” which covered the first six Star Trek movies starring the original cast. Those films ended an era that will never return, but Star Trek itself lives on with a new generation and a new crew that has become as beloved as the original.
Once upon a time a little TV show came and went within three seasons, and that was the end of that. It was on its death bed after two seasons, but the passionate fandom put it on life support for one more season. Life support it was, as it gasped through the whole third season with mostly inferior episodes. A cartoon version came and went, and Star Trek sunk into the same oblivion as other long-ago popular science fiction series like Flash Gordon.
Way back in 1953—one year before I was born (oh my that’s a long time ago!)—this handsome young pair of fellows met in a school in Queens, New York. Paul Simon noticed Art Garfunkel when he sang in a talent show—in fourth grade. They got together and discovered they could make beautiful music together, so they joined and formed a duo called…Tom & Jerry.