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Showing posts from May, 2018

Watching The Terror: "A horrific, humanist masterpiece"

I recently completed watching the 10-episode run of AMC's The Terror .  It was a well-acted, well-written, surprising take on the horror genre - more of an historically accurate survival adventure than another run-of-the-mill blood and gore fright flick.  In some respects, it felt like something H.P. Lovecraft would have written.  Though slow moving at times (not a bad thing in my book), The Terror was a fascinating, bleak, and psychologically terrifying TV show.  Its metaphorical implications were rich and it was a masterful example of how to build tension without the big reveal. What caught my eye initially about the program was the involvement of Ridley Scott (as executive producer ) and the initial visuals that I saw.  Set the Arctic in 1846,  The Terror was largely videoed in CGI .  The actors performed in a digital environment that was visually stunning at times.  The still images I saw on the internet captivated me before the premiere.  The excellent production values

Rain, Beauty, and Art in St. Louis

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We arrived in St. Louis during a torrential downpour.  It rained off and on throughout our stay. It has been awhile since I vacationed somewhere other than the beach or the mountains.  This year, St. Louis called to me, primarily due to paintings by Gerhard Richter displayed in its art museum.  But there are many great attractions in that town.  Jennifer and I set out to explore some of them recently during a long weekend.   We wanted to do it as a road trip.  See the countryside.  I had never seen the Ohio River, for example.  Nor had either of us driven through beautiful rural southern Illinois.  So it was time to load up the car and discover a new part of our country.  Departing on Friday, we drove up through Chattanooga and Nashville before stopping in Clarksville, Tennessee for lunch at the Black Horse Pub .  I enjoyed a Cletus, a fancy hamburger topped with a fried green tomato, tomato jam and spectacular onion rings.  Tasted great!  According to Google Maps the trip

The Atlanta Campaign: Into the Hell Hole

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The morning of May 25, 1864.  Johnston has swung his army around and is now gathering at New Hope Church to meet the wide Federal advance. The same situation as presented in the just released (since my first two posts in this series) VASSAL Module for Atlanta is Ours!   The module orients the game map left to right whereas I oriented it up and down on my gaming table.  From here on I will use screen shots from this module to depict the military situations in the Atlanta Campaign. After avoiding a Confederate ambush at Cassville, Sherman boldly decided to attempt a larger, wider flanking maneuver against Johnston's smaller army.  Upon crossing the Etowah River, the Union commanding general opted to abandon the railroad line of march that had heretofore made his  concentration rather predictable.  He hoped to catch Johnston being overly conservative and get around the Army of Tennessee's left flank. The maneuver involved all three Federal armies pulling away from the