Tag Archives: Reviews

Tributes: 81-Year Old Country Singer Kenny Rogers Dies (1938 – 2020)

Kenny Rogers Facebook March 21 2020March 21, 2020 – The Rogers family is sad to announce that Kenny Rogers passed away last night at 10:25PM at the age of 81.  Rogers passed away peacefully at home from natural causes under the care of hospice and surrounded by his family.
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In a career that spanned more than six decades, Kenny Rogers left an indelible mark on the history of American music. His songs have endeared music lovers and touched the lives of millions around the world. Chart-topping hits like “The Gambler,” “Lady,” “Islands In The Stream,” “Lucille,” “She Believes In Me,” and “Through the Years” are just a handful of Kenny Rogers’ songs that have inspired generations of artists and fans alike.
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Rogers, with twenty-four number-one hits, was a Country Music Hall of Fame member, six-time CMA Awards winner, three-time GRAMMY® Award winner, recipient of the CMA Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013, CMT Artist of a Lifetime Award honoree in 2015 and has been voted the “Favorite Singer of All Time” in a joint poll by readers of both USA Today and People.
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The family is planning a small private service at this time out of concern for the national COVID-19 emergency.  They look forward to celebrating Kenny’s life publicly with his friends and fans at a later date.
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Top Restaurant Videos: Gion Mikaku In Kyoto, Japan’s Best Steakhouse

Gion Mikaku, founded 1929: – 2 different cuts of beef: Tajima beef filet mignon and Kobe beef rump steak with just the right amount of marbling (intra-muscular fat) and no extra-muscular fat – 400g in total. Steak cutting behind a window in their kitchen, friendly, dedicated service, pleasant view, extra hot griddle for proper searing, right timing and handling of the steaks: they certainly know what they are doing – This restaurant meal included garlic rice (between steak and dessert).

Gion Mikaku Kyoto Japan Best Kobe Beef Steakhouse Menu

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Cookbooks: “Les Dîners de Gala” (1973) By Salvador Dalí Reprinted By Taschen

From an Art Daily online article (March 19, 2020):

“I love eating suits of arms, in fact I love all shell fish… food that only a battle to peel makes it vulnerable to the conquest of our palate.”

Les diners de Gala Salvador Dali rerpint by Taschen 2020This reprint features all 136 recipes over 12 chapters, specially illustrated by Dalí, and organized by meal courses, including aphrodisiacs. The illustrations and recipes are accompanied by Dalí’s extravagant musings on subjects such as dinner conversation: “The jaw is our best tool to grasp philosophical knowledge.”

NEW YORK, NY.- “Les diners de Gala is uniquely devoted to the pleasures of taste … If you are a disciple of one of those calorie-counters who turn the joys of eating into a form of punishment, close this book at once; it is too lively, too aggressive, and far too impertinent for you.”—Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí Les dîners de Gala cookbook Taschen book

Read fabulous review in Brain Pickings

Food and surrealism make perfect bedfellows: sex and lobsters, collage and cannibalism, the meeting of a swan and a toothbrush on a pastry case. The opulent dinner parties thrown by Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) and his wife and muse, Gala (1894–1982) were the stuff of legend. Luckily for us, Dalí published a cookbook in 1973, Les diners de Gala, which reveals some of the sensual, imaginative, and exotic elements that made up their notorious gatherings.

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Podcasts: The “Brilliance” Of Hilary Mantel’s Trilogy On Thomas Cromwell

Monocle on Culture Monocle 24 logoRobert Bound, John Mitchinson and Ted Hodgkinson review the final – and rather hefty – instalment of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy.

Best New Fiction Books: 57-Year Old Author Lily King’s “Writers & Lovers” – On The Road To Happiness

Writers & Lovers Lily King March 2020Writers & Lovers follows Casey―a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist―in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King’s trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.

Following the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Euphoria Lily KingLily King returns with another instant New York Times bestseller: an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman.

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Lily King is the author of five award-winning novels. Her most recent novel, Writers & Lovers, will be published on March 3rd, 2020. Her 2014 novel Euphoria won the Kirkus Award, The New England Book Award, The Maine Fiction Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award. Euphoria was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by The New York Times Book Review. It was included in TIME’s Top 10 Fiction Books of 2014, as well as on Amazon, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, and Salon’s Best Books of 2014.

Lily’s website

 

 

Design Books: “Architizer – The World’s Best Architecture” (Phaidon)

Architizer The World's Best Architecture Phaidon April 2020The Architizer A+Awards represent 2019’s best architecture and products, celebrated by a diverse group of influencers within and outside the architectural community. Entries are judged by more than 400 luminaries from fields as diverse as fashion, publishing, product design, real-estate development, and technology, and voted on by the public, culminating in a collection of the world’s finest buildings.

Each year, winners are honored in this fully illustrated compendium, and on Architizer.com, the largest online architecture community on the planet. Featuring select A+Award winners, this is the definitive guide to the year’s best buildings and spaces.

Architizer is the leading online resource for architecture. Through its vast building database, daily content, ‘Source’ marketplace, and A+Awards, it is revolutionizing the way architects connect with building-product manufacturers and the world beyond.

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Elderly & Coronavirus: Nursing Homes Increase Guest Symptom, Travel And Exposure Reviews

From a Harvard Gazette online article (March 10, 2020):

Harvard Gazette Elderly Coronavirus Risk Article March 10 2020There’s a symptom review, there’s a travel review, and there’s an exposure review. And if the answer to any of those questions is yes, then you’re asked to not come in. And so far people have been compliant and have left. So that is a good thing.

If you have a cough and a fever, if you’ve got respiratory symptoms and you’re short of breath, if you’ve traveled to a place of concern or if you may have been exposed to someone who did — especially if you’re symptomatic — then I would definitely ask, “Do I really need to visit my grandma today? Can I wait and can I Skype her? Can I do FaceTime?”

I know that’s hard for some of our older adults who aren’t technologically savvy, but maybe now is the time to get them hooked up. It really would be heartbreaking if, in wanting to do something positive for someone’s emotional or mental health, you ended up infecting them.

Harvard-affiliated Hebrew SeniorLife offers a continuum of care for 3,000 elderly people daily, with a range of services including residential assisted living, short-term rehabilitation, outpatient services, and long-term care for those with chronic illness. In a Q&A interview aimed at understanding the challenges involved, Harvard Medical School Assistant Professor Helen Chen, Hebrew SeniorLife’s chief medical officer, discussed steps the facility has taken to combat the virus and the outlook going forward.

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New Culture & Food Books: “Cooking In Marfa” – Fine Dining “In The West Texas Desert” (Phaidon)

The Capri Restaurant in Marfa TexasCooking in Marfa introduces an unusual small town in the West Texas desert and, within it, a fine-dining oasis in a most unlikely place. The Capri excels at serving the spectrum of guests that Marfa draws, from locals and ranchers to artists, museum-board members, and discerning tourists.

Featuring more than 80 recipes inspired by local products, this is the story of this unique community told through the lens of food, sharing the cuisine and characters that make The Capri a destination unto itself.

Cooking In Marfa Book Phaidon April 2020

Marfa, the remote desert town in West Texas, might be small, but its cultural capital is far greater than its city limits suggest. “There are multigenerational families that were here when this was still Mexico, ranchers of European descent, artists, patrons, collectors, railroad workers, border patrol, fashion designers, builders, social workers, photographers, tomato factory workers, cultural travelers, intrepid travelers, and transient hipsters all existing in 1.6 square miles, at ‘about a mile high’ [elevation] with a population of 1,800 people, more or less,” writes the entrepreneur, philanthropist, restaurateur and Texas native Virginia Lebermann in our new book, Cooking in Marfa: Welcome, We’ve Been Expecting You.

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Heart Health Video: “Beta Blockers” Lower CVD Risks Of Harmful Gut Microbes

Hazen and colleagues find that gut bacteria play a central role in the conversion of dietary proteins into a compound, phenylacetylglutamine ( PAGln), which not only is associated with future cardiovascular disease risk in humans but also promotes platelet responsiveness and blood clotting potentially via adrenergic receptors, according to mouse models.

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Art History Podcasts: “Understanding the Medieval World through Books” (Getty Museum)

Getty Museum PodcastsWhat was the world like from 500 to 1500 CE? This period, often called medieval or the Middle Ages in European history, saw the rise and fall of empires and the expansion of cross-cultural exchange.

Getty curator Bryan C. Keene argues that illuminated manuscripts and decorated texts from Africa, Asia, Australasia, the Americas, and Europe are windows through which we can view the interconnected history of humanity. In this episode, he discusses his recent book Toward a Global Middle Ages: Encountering the World through Illuminated Manuscripts, highlighting the challenges and opportunities of the emerging discipline known as the Global Middle Ages.