Category Archives: Reviews

Literary & Cultural Books: “The Peanuts Papers” Looks At Life Of Charles M. Schulz And His Cartoon Characters

The Peanuts Papers Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown Snoopy & the Gang and the Meaning of LifeOver the span of fifty years, Charles M. Schulz created a comic strip that is one of the indisputable glories of American popular culture—hilarious, poignant, inimitable. Some twenty years after the last strip appeared, the characters Schulz brought to life in Peanuts continue to resonate with millions of fans, their beguiling four-panel adventures and television escapades offering lessons about happiness, friendship, disappointment, childhood, and life itself.

In The Peanuts Papers, thirty-three writers and artists reflect on the deeper truths of Schulz’s deceptively simple comic, its impact on their lives and art and on the broader culture. These enchanting, affecting, and often quite personal essays show just how much Peanuts means to its many admirers—and the ways it invites us to ponder, in the words of Sarah Boxer, “how to survive and still be a decent human being” in an often bewildering world. Featuring essays, memoirs, poems, and two original comic strips, here is the ultimate reader’s companion for every Peanuts fan.

Website: https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/1586-silliness-small-stakes-and-a-compelling-other-world-jonathan-franzen-pays-homage-to-_peanuts_

 

New Tech Books: “The Future Is Faster Than You Think”, Peter H. Diamandis & Steven Kotler (Jan 2020)

The Future Is Faster Than You Think Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler 2020Technology is accelerating far more quickly than anyone could have imagined. During the next decade, we will experience more upheaval and create more wealth than we have in the past hundred years. In this gripping and insightful roadmap to our near future, Diamandis and Kotler investigate how wave after wave of exponentially accelerating technologies will impact both our daily lives and society as a whole. What happens as AI, robotics, virtual reality, digital biology, and sensors crash into 3D printing, blockchain, and global gigabit networks? How will these convergences transform today’s legacy industries? What will happen to the way we raise our kids, govern our nations, and care for our planet?

Peter Diamandis The Future Is Faster Than You ThinkRecently named by Fortune as one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” Peter H. Diamandis is the founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, which leads the world in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions.  He is also the executive founder of Singularity University, a graduate-level Silicon Valley institution that counsels the world’s leaders on exponentially growing technologies.

As an entrepreneur, Diamandis has started over 20 companies in the areas of longevity, space, venture capital and education. He is co-founder of BOLD Capital Partners, a venture fund with $250M investing in exponential technologies, and co-founder and Vice
Chairman of Celularity, Inc., a cellular therapeutics company.

Website: https://www.diamandis.com/

Books On Aging: “Old Man Country – My Search For Meaning Among The Elders” (Thomas R. Cole)

From a NextAvenue.org online review:

Old Man Country Thomas R. Cole 2019Am I Still a Man?

Masculinity is not a natural collection of individual traits but, rather, a cultural story, a plot or a script by which men are judged and judge themselves. One problem is that this script for masculinity stops at midlife. For most old men in American society, there are no landmarks of achievement or value; no lighthouse guiding one’s moral compass; no employment office with the sign “old men wanted.” There is only the province of retirement — a barren place often marked by an absence of wealth, prestige and personal meaning.

Do I Still Matter?

At least since the institutionalization of retirement in the mid-20th century, old men have often felt marginalized, useless or invisible. Retirement is a primary source of depression for those whose identities and self-esteem have depended on being productive, earning a living and being engaged with others in the workplace. Employment and volunteer work are often less possible for men who have reached their 80s.

What Is the Meaning of My Life?

Because our society provides old people with no widely shared meanings or norms by which to live, the task of finding significance in later life falls to individuals in their relationships with family and community.

Meaning is partly a matter of love and of relevance. If I love and am loved, my life has significance. Meaning is also a moral question: Have I lived a good life by my own lights? Did I, and do I, measure up to my own expectations and to the standards of my family, religion, community and nation?

Am I Still Loved?

Love, of course, means many things. There is love of God. There is love that comes from God or a Divine Being or Beings — love that carries existential meaning. It is the kind of love Ram Dass received from his guru Neem Karoli Baba, who inspired him to live a life of loving service on the path toward merging with Brahman, the ultimate reality in Hinduism.

To read more: https://www.nextavenue.org/questions-older-men-ask-themselves/?hide_newsletter=true&utm_source=Next+Avenue+Email+Newsletter&utm_campaign=1eb08d4dfa-12.10.2019_Tuesday_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_056a405b5a-1eb08d4dfa-166479103&mc_cid=1eb08d4dfa&mc_eid=6cab05fae0

Entertainment: “Top Ten TV Shows Of 2019” (AdWeek)

From an AdWeek online article:

Adweek LogoBut while there is more great TV than ever before, the number of top-tier programs actually declined in 2018, making the task of assembling a Top 10 TV shows list easier than usual since so few shows stood out from the pack. That changed for the better in 2019, resulting in a Top 10 lineup that features only one returning series from 2018’s list. (Also, some of last year’s best shows, like Better Call Saul and Atlanta, didn’t air new episodes in 2019.)

1. Fleabag (Amazon)

Fleabag Seaon 2

2. Succession (HBO)

Succession Season 2 poster

3. Watchmen (HBO)

Watchmen poster

4. Russian Doll (Netflix)

5. Chernobyl (HBO)

6. When They See Us (Netflix)

7. Better Things (FX)

8. Unbelievable (Netflix)

9. Barry (HBO)

10. The Good Fight (CBS All Access)

To read more: https://www.adweek.com/tv-video/the-10-best-tv-shows-of-2019/?utm_content=summary_component&utm_source=postup&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=FirstThingsFirst_Newsletter_191211054551&lyt_id=1124968

Classic Car Nostalgia: “1961 Ford Starliner” (Ford Authority)

From a Ford Authority online article:

Of all the muscle cars we’ve talked about, this 1961 Ford Starliner is most certainly one of the cleanest rides that we’ve seen, both figuratively and literally. It has no extra chrome, no hood scoops, no tubs for fat wheels. It looks almost stock save for the beautiful maroon paint and custom wheels.

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Inside the 1961 Ford Starliner has a fully custom interior that is as clean and subtle as the outside of the car. It’s done up in lots of beige leather and looks fantastic along with the maroon exterior of the car. It also has air conditioning. The Starliner rolls on a Roadster Shop performance chassis that has power rack-and-pinion steering, along with front and rear antiroll bars, panhard bars, and coilovers. The shocks are Afco double-adjustable drag racing units.

To read more: http://fordauthority.com/2019/12/1961-ford-starliner-wraps-815-ponies-in-a-very-clean-wrapper/

Top New Cable Series: HBO’s “The New Pope” Starring John Malkovich & Jude Law (Video Trailer)

Academy Award-winning director Paolo Sorrentino returns with The New Pope, his second original series set in the world of the modern papacy. Written by Sorrenttino with Umberto Contarello and Stefano Bises, the nine-episode original series features Jude Law and John Malkovich. Sharon Stone and Marilyn Manson guest star.

New Biographies: “The Shadow Of Vesuvius -A Life Of Pliny” By Daisy Dunn

The Shadow of Vesuvius A Life of Pliny by Daisy Dunn Dec 2019When Pliny the Elder perished at Stabiae during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, he left behind an enormous compendium of knowledge, his thirty-seven-volume Natural History, and a teenaged nephew who revered him as a father. Grieving his loss, Pliny the Younger inherited the Elder’s notebooks—filled with pearls of wisdom—and his legacy. At its heart, The Shadow of Vesuvius is a literary biography of the younger man, who would grow up to become a lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, and chronicler of the Roman Empire from the dire days of terror under Emperor Domitian to the gentler times of Emperor Trajan. A biography that will appeal to lovers of Mary Beard books, it is also a moving narrative about the profound influence of a father figure on his adopted son. Interweaving the younger Pliny’s Letters with extracts from the Elder’s Natural History, Daisy Dunn paints a vivid, compellingly readable portrait of two of antiquity’s greatest minds.

Top 2019 Home Designs: WARchitect’s “HACHI Skyscape” In Thailand

 The project’s owner runs a 5-story apartment. In the past, the rooftop was only used to keep water tanks, leaving a lot of empty space. The owner, therefore, wished to build a small house there for his own use. The rooftop location is an interestingly unique context that sets this project apart from other housing designs. Instead of a normal ground, this house has a concrete courtyard. Trees are replaced with vertical lines of tall buildings in the Lat Phrao district. 

WARchitect The Hachi Skyscape Interior

WARchitect The Hachi Skyscape Kitchen InteriorOur idea was not to make this house feel like a building, but to free it from form. We wanted it to be just a borderless box that emerges out of nowhere in the sky, as if the thickness of the wall and roof were non-existent, but still able to make holes in the ceiling to install curtains, air conditioners, and embed lights. Our intention was to give an illusion to onlookers that the entire ceiling was in the same straight line even though we featured a drop ceiling and a slope that was intentionally used to make the wall and ceiling look thin.

To read more: https://www.facebook.com/pg/WARchitect.design/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2010327902589589&ref=page_internal