Best Miami Vice* episode ever

And with the best sound track.



* Ask your parents, kids.

Spyro Gyra - Havana Moonlight

I must admit that I have a soft spot in my heart for Spyro Gyra, even though it's perilously close to being elevator music.

J.R.R. Tolkien's 1926 translation of Beowulf to be published

This has just shot up to the very top of my "must read" list:

This week, HarperCollins announced that a long-awaited JRR Tolkien translation of Beowulf is to be published in May, along with his commentaries on the Old English epic and a story it inspired him to write, "Sellic Spell". It is just the latest of a string of posthumous publications from the Oxford professor and The Hobbit author, who died in 1973. Edited by his son Christopher, now 89, it will doubtless be seen by some as an act of barrel-scraping. But Tolkien's expertise on Beowulf and his own literary powers give us every reason to take it seriously.

Yeah, no kidding this is serious stuff.  Tolkien was a genius when it came to languages - not only was he an Oxford Don, scholar of Anglo-Saxon (the still Germanic Old English root of our modern tongue), but he taught himself medieval Icelandic to read their tales in the original, and taught himself Finnish - a language seemingly unrelated to any other and very, very different from Indo-European - so that he could translate (!) their great saga, the Kalevala.

This is a big deal, as the Guardian points out:

Beowulf is the oldest-surviving epic poem in English, albeit a form of English few can read any more. Written down sometime between the eighth and 11th centuries – a point of ongoing debate – its 3,182 lines are preserved in a manuscript in the British Library, against all odds. Tolkien's academic work on it was second to none in its day, and his 1936 paper "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" is still well worth reading, not only as an introduction to the poem, but also because it decisively changed the direction and emphasis of Beowulf scholarship.

...

Tolkien was often criticised by his academic colleagues for wasting time on fiction, even though that fiction has probably done more to popularise medieval literature than the work of 100 scholars. However, his failure to publish scholarship was not due to laziness nor entirely to other distractions. He was an extreme perfectionist who, as CS Lewis said, worked "like a coral insect", and his idea of what was acceptable for publication was several notches above what the most stringent publisher would demand. It will be fascinating to see how he exercised his literary, historical and linguistic expertise on the poem, and to compare it with more purely literary translations such as Seamus Heaney's as well as the academic ones. Tolkien bridged the gap between the two worlds astonishingly well. He was the arch-revivalist of literary medievalism, who made it seem so relevant to the modern world. I can't wait to see his version of the first English epic.

Yeah, me neither.

Army Of Darkness 2?

So let it be written.  So let it be done.  Or is it real?



I'm not sure I catch his drift here.  And for the four of you who don't get out much, this is what the deal is:

Let's go back in time

I must confess that this is a hugely guilty pleasure for me; from an age where people were still figuring out how to shoot music videos*, when I was in my twenties (barely), had hair almost as good as Huey (almost), and when life was simple.  And had a shirt exactly like his in both videos).  Good times,good times.



This is the point where people roll their eyes at me.  I don't care.  Srlsy.  Because it's hip to be square.



Yes, I cut my hair.

* When people still shot music videos.

Quote of the Day: Motorcycle edition

Gosh, it seems like teh Intarwebz are collectively telling me to stop being a grownup and just get the bike.  Dave H speaks my language in a comment here with the QOTD:

One nice thing about a motorcycle: the NSA can't hack its CAN Bus and drive you into a tree.

True dat.  That's one persuasive fellow.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Fishin' In The Dark

Yesterday was the first day of summer, a timeless moment that makes you think of long lost guilty pleasures from your youth.  This song is one of those for me.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has been around since those days of my youth.  In fact, it dates to the mid 1960s.  Along the way a lot of people have been in the band, most famously Jackson Browne and the Eagles' Bernie Leadon.  They've picked up a couple of Grammys. 

Theirs is an eclectic and hard to describe mix of country, bluegrass, folk, and pop that you either love or hate, or maybe both at the same time.  This hit #1 on the Country charts in 1987, and takes me back to a less complicated time of my life.



Fishin' In The Dark (Songwriters: Wendy Waldman, Jim Photoglo)

Lazy yellow moon comin' up tonite,
Shinin' thru the trees,
Crickets are singin' and lightning bugs
Are floatin on the breeze
Baby get ready.....

Across the field where the creek turns back by the ole stump road
I'm gonna take you to a special place that nobody knows
Baby get ready.....ooooooooooo

You and me going fishing in the dark,
Lying on our backs and counting the stars
Where the cool grass grows.
Down by the river in the full moon light,
We'll be fallin' in love in the middle of the night
Just movin' slow...

Stayin' the whole night thru, feels so good to be with you...

Spring is almost over and the summer's come
And the days are gettin' long
Waited all winter for the time to be right, just to take you along
Baby get ready.....

And it don't matter if we sit forever and the fish don't bite
Jump in the river and cool ourselves from the heat of the night
Baby get ready.....ooooooooooo.

Jan & Dean - Surf City

It's the equinox, which means that it's officially summer now.  OK, here's some summer music.

Pretty tasty

Tyson's Any'tizers Chicken Fries.  I got back late and #2 Son had just bakes the entire bag.  Not wanting them to go to waste (even the two kids would have a problem eating that many), and being pretty hungry, I got some salsa and sat down with them.

Pretty good, really.  Of course, the Usual Suspects tell me that they're bad for me.  Whatevs.

Not gourmet, by any means, but what do you expect coming out of a freezer bag?  Maybe helps to be hungry.

Apropos nothing

The Mozart variation is insanely clever.

Doris Day - Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps

Doris Day is a guilty pleasure, and this is perhaps her greatest song ever.  And it's a simply smashing rumba, which if you've never learned it I'm sure that your Captain can help you out.  Certainly all of my Gentlemen Readers should be able to do a credible rumba because their Lady Friends will simply swoon when they do.  Not sure what more of a recommendation you need.



Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps (Cuban songwriter Osvaldo Farrés, translated from the Spanish by Joe Davis)

You won't admit you love me
And so how am I ever to know?
You always tell me
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

A million times I've asked you,
And then I ask you over again
You only answer
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

If you can't make your mind up
We'll never get started
And I don't wanna wind up
Being parted, broken-hearted

So if you really love me
Say yes, but if you don't dear, confess
And please don't tell me
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

If you can't make your mind up
We'll never get started
And I don't wanna wind up
Being parted, broken-hearted

So if you really love me
Say yes, but if you don't dear, confess
And please don't tell me
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

And to answer my overly-curious readers, yes I can do a quite credible rumba.  Especially to this.

Awesome book review

Foseti reviews Kingsley Amis' "Everyday Drinking".

Amis, of course, was the hard-drinking father of Martin Amis, the hard-drinking lifelong friend of the hard-drinking Christopher Hitchens.  The combination of alcohol in excess with intellectual* wit in excess has, I must confess, rather a gravitational pull on me.

And Foseti is quite right about the virtues of a simple syrup.  About the only place that won't work better than sugar is in a mint julep where the sugar crystals are required to shred the mint leaves during muddling.

Here's a flavor of the book:

First, a simply ploy with gin . . . Asked what you’d like to drink, say simply, “Gin, please.” Wave away any tonic, lemon, even ice, and accept only a little water – bottled naturally. Someone’s sure to ask you if that’s all you really want, etc. Answer, “Yes, I must say I like to be able to taste the botanicals, which just means I like the taste of gin, I suppose. Of course, a lot of people only like the effect.” Any gin-and-tonic drinkers in earshot will long to hit you with a meat axe, which after all is the whole object.

Awesome, simply awesome.  And timely for New Year's Eve, I might point out.  Foseti, a grateful Intarwebz thanks you.

Guilty pleasure

Army of Darkness is so full of Win that it's an Internet meme!

This is my BOOMSTICK! (with unlimited ammo in a double barreled shottie)

Guilty pleasure

The Travel Channel is running a marathon of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" series.  Bourdain is one of those personality types that you either love or hate; he falls on the enjoyable side of that line with me.  Each episode is spent in a different location - Sydney, Rio, etc - and covers both the sights and the local cuisine.

As a (minor) foodie who's traveled quite a bit, this has been a surprisingly fun way to be a couch potato.

Guilty Pleasure

Modern Drunkard magazine.  Some people drink to forget.  Me, I can't remember why I drink.

I didn't find the Randy Travis section, but no doubt it will be in the next issue.  We, err, urge you to enjoy this web site responsibly. 

Guilty pleasure

I have to say that I like this song - it takes me back to a time before mi vida became loca.  It was a good place, for a while.