Ummagumma

Here is my annual foray into stuff from this year that I didn’t blog about. I enjoy a good documentary.  Great ones are rare, of course.  So far in the 21st century I have only seen three that I would rank a solid 10.  The Fog of War (2003), Citizenfour (2014), and now Leaving Neverland (2019).  This most recent documentary is a four-hour look at Michael Jackson’s alleged pedophilia with talented young boys, featuring mind-blowing interviews with two of his alleged victims and their mothers.  The style and the amount of detail in Leaving Neverland are as exceptional as its topic is disturbing.  But what really makes this one engaging despite the revolting revelations is the superbly articulate capacities of the two moms and the (now adult) victims.  Jackson obviously was highly discriminating in his tastes for “sleepover” buddies.   Although the documentary makes it clear that Jackson by no means abused the majority of the children he b...

Proof of Purchase. Even before I made my recent trek to Nashville and Franklin (and perhaps in part because of it) I was reading The Army of Tennessee in Retreat (2018) by O.C. Hood .  The subtitle of the book is “From Defeat at Nashville through ‘the Sternest Trials of the War.’”  That is surely not an overstatement.  While American soldiers on both sides were dealing with difficult winter conditions in December 1864, none had it worse that General John Bell Hood’s virtually destroyed Army of Tennessee following the overwhelming victory by General George Henry Thomas’ Union forces at Nashville. My original attraction to this book was that it covered in greater detail an aspect of the War Between the States that was in short supply elsewhere in my robust Civil War collection.  In his classic work Autumn of Glory by Thomas Connelly , for example, Hood’s retreat from Nashville is barely mentioned at all.  James McPherson’s  Pulitzer Prize-winning...

Note: This is a continuation of the previous post. The task of delaying the Confederates fell to Colonel Emerson Opdycke’s brigade.  Not only did his seven regiments have to content with Forrest’s probes but the brigade was also assigned the task “to bring forward all stragglers belonging to the army.”  Many of Schofield’s troops were new recruits and draftees with little experience in soldiering.  Opdycke’s men had forced marched all night, were fighting off Rebel cavalry, and now had to round up hundreds of Yankee stragglers along the road toward Franklin. Now it was time for some command confusion on the Union side.  Wagner’s other two brigades (Lane’s and Colonel Joseph Conrad’s ) were holding the hills south of Franklin in advance of the rest of Schofield’s force while it entrenched.  Eventually, Wagner pulled his men back to a small rise a few hundred yards in front of the rest of the Union troops.  Here he ordered both brigades to dig-in.  J...

Proof of Purchase.  One of the best books about the War Between the States that I've ever read. As regular readers know, I am in the midst of an obsession with the 1864 Tennessee Campaign lately, triggered in no small part by my recent visit to what’s left of the Franklin and Nashville battlegrounds.  Naturally, this inspired me to further my research into these topics, particularly with the Battle of Franklin and the preceding Spring Hill "Affair." I have studied the American Civil War for over 40 years.  As someone with a large collection of books, periodicals, and other resources I can say that my recent reading of For Cause & For Country (2006) by Eric A. Jacobson was both a surprise and a delight.  (See great YouTube videos featuring him here and here .) It was a surprise in that I did not expect to learn as much as I did from this extremely well researched book.  It was a delight that this compelling narrative is presented in such an organi...

The film opens with a rather abrupt shot of Alice (Nicole Kidman) undressing.  Several elements in this shot make it a perfect introduction to Eyes Wide Shut .  The two rackets in the corner suggest a couple.  The two red drapes reflected in the mirror announce the mirroring and coupling that will be explored throughout the film.  Of course, the immediate undressing and revealing of Alice's naked body suggests the film itself is going to be a kind of intimate revelation. Note:  Like the film, this review is rated "R."  NSFW.  You should be an adult to read it.    Although he was controversial for virtually all his films from Lolita to A Clockwork Orange , Stanley Kubrick’s final film, Eyes Wide Shut , was one of his most controversial.  Not only because of its erotic content and seemingly convoluted narrative, but because the filming itself was so arduous and decadent.  It took over 15 months, including a period of 46 consec...