Lit City Blues

Netflix & Chill: The Complete Archive (So Far) Editor's Note: Please note that the count is slightly off in a few places because I'm bad at math and I can't count. #1: Filth #2: Save The Date #3: Notting Hill #4: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot #5: Mr. Holmes #6: Moonrise Kingdom #7: Spectre #8: Table 19 #9: The Big Short #10: Doctor Strange #11: What Happened, Miss Simone? #12: Kubo and The Two Strings #13: The BFG #14: Gimme Danger #15: The Secret Life of Pets #16: The Bonds of Roger Moore, Part 1  #17: War Machine #18: Cars 3 #19: The Bonds of Roger Moore, Part 2 #20: Beauty and the Beast #21: Jodorowsky's Dune #22: Rogue One #23: Cake #24: For The Love of Spock #25: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 #26: Burnt #27: No Reservations #28: Wonder Woman #29: The Big Sick #30: The Hunt for Red October #31: The Right Stuff #32: Arrival #33: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull #34: The Bonds of Timothy Dalton #35: Silence #36: Bright #37: A Futile and Stupid Gesture

I feel like Hollywood has been chasing adaptations of Dune on and off for decades now. David Lynch took the first real crack at it in 1984. The Sci-Fi Channel did a miniseries of it in 2000 and followed that up with a sequel mini-series that incorporated some of the sequels in 2003. There have been documentaries about attempts to get this movie made (Jodorowsky's Dune, which would have been wild had they managed to make it) and now, finally, I think they've got it right with what the best and perhaps most faithful adaptation of the book. Set in the far future of the year 10191, Duke Leto of House Atreides, ruler of the planet Caladan is assigned by the Emperor to replace House Harkonnen as rulers of Arrakis. Arrakis is a harsh desert planet and the source of the mysterious 'spice' that is necessary for interstellar travel. Threatened by the growing power of House Atreides, the Emperor plans to have the Harkonnens (the prior rulers of Arrakis), stage a coup and take bac

Shortly after K was diagnosed with apraxia, I think both the Missus and I did some digging to find books, resources, anything about apraxia so we could understand what it was and how people deal with it, and more importantly, what the prognosis might actually look like. Anything But Silent made the list very early on, but we never actually ran it down and purchased the damn thing until recently. (Well, really until I found out about ThriftBooks.com and it was on there for a cheaper price than Amazon and I figured for that price, we may as well finally get this book and find out what it was all about.) Written by Kathy Hennessy and her daughter Kate (with one chapter by her son Andy as well), Anything But Silent is a chronicle of their family's journey through apraxia of speech. At 154 pages, this is a quick read- and Kathy and Kate alternate chapters, so you can get the perspective of a parent and of a child who grew up with apraxia of speech. The writing style is very personal:

LOCAL ENDORSEMENTS: Y'all, there's an election next Tuesday! I know it's an off-year election and not particularly sexy, but every election is important and there are some local issues (and candidates) to consider on the ballot this year both for School Board and for City Council. Let's start with the School Board . I don't really have any strong feelings about any of these candidates. I feel like Malone and Claussen have done a good job while on the Board, I see no reason not to re-elect them. Burrus with her background in data science intrigued me, but Pilcher-Hayek is already deeply involved in the District, being co-President of the DPO and Sheila Pinter, while not as outside the box as Phil Hemingway was, does provide a different perspective, which I think would be important to have in the mix for the Board. With all that said, I'm going to give the nod to: J.P. Claussen, Ruthina Malone, Maka Pilcher-Hayek, and Sheila Pinter. There's also a ballot quest

Ever since Apple TV became a thing, there have been two shows that I have been itching to watch: The Morning Show and For All Mankind and when my Google Pixel finally gave up the ghost and I switched back to Team iPhone, it came with a free three-month trial of Apple TV, so I sat down and got binging. I don't know what it is about workplace dramedies, but I'm always up for a good one and right off the bat, The Morning Show proved that it's a great one. The show opens with longtime co-anchor Mitch Kessler (Steve Carrell) being fired amid allegations of sexual harassment. That revelation throws the entire show into chaos, including Mitch's longtime co-anchor, Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) who has to announce his firing and then grapple with the fact that both the network and Mitch had kept her in the dark about the full extent of his harassment.  Meanwhile, a local reporter and firebrand Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) goes viral when she angrily fact-checks a coal m

I didn't watch.  In retrospect, that seems almost sacrilegious to admit- but in my defense, I don't have cable or live streaming at the moment. I also get a little superstitious sometimes. I get paranoid that as soon as I start watching or listening things go awry and it all goes pear-shaped, so I didn't watch. I figured that I followed the game versus Maryland last week on Twitter and Iowa stomped 'em, so my superstitious game brain figured a good result from doing that last week more or less demanded the same this week. Happily, it turns out that superstitious game brain was correct and Iowa won. This was the first top-five match-up in Kinnick Stadium since #1 Iowa versus #2 Michigan all the way back in 1985. That would make it titanic enough, but it was also the first Big Ten top-five match-up not involving either Michigan or Ohio State since 1962. In every way, this was Iowa's biggest game in decades and it more than lived up to the billing.  I had a roommate in