Music, Movie, More

Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers, FireAid benefit concert. Reuters photo by Daniel Cole:

Last night Movies!, channel 5–2 on OTA in NYC, ran a flick I’d never heard of, Space Truckers (1996). I watched because it starred the late Dennis Hopper. It’s a colorful romp about a secret cargo bound for Earth that will help an evil businessman conquer the world. Hopper plays the unwitting trucker, assisted by Debi Mazar and Stephen Dorff. Charles Dance seems to be having a ball, hamming it up as the leader of a group of pirates who hijack the goods. George Wendt has a small role as a hard-nosed company man. Light years from great art, it is nonetheless fun, not boring. It was co-written and directed by the late Stuart Gordon, who did the excellent Re-Animator (1985). It’s rated 5.4 on a scale of ten at IMDb. It bombed at the box office, earning less than $2 million against a budget of over $25 million. Photo from Google Images:

The previous night I caught bits of a fairly recent Chicago concert, broadcast on PBS. I paused whenever the band was doing a song from its early days, such as Does Anybody Know What Time It Is? The finale, 25 or 6 to 4, was rousing. Although the singers were surprisingly good, given their age, they recruited a couple of moderns to help. I did not recognize either young man, but they were excellent. I’m sure fans of the group’s entire cannon would love the show.

Headline from foxnews.com: “American among 3 hostages freed by Hamas, as Israel releases 183 prisoners.” Good news but what a ratio!

This would be another plus for AI if it pans out. From FN: “CEO details how AI-powered weapons detection systems could make schools safer.”

I check my books’ stats every Saturday morning. There were two sales during the week, one unexpected of Class of ’67. I wonder if all the posting I’ve done at X finally paid off, or if it was someone at classmates.com, which emails me regularly that someone has visited my profile. Whatever, my thanks to the buyers… I just received a message at X that Elon Musk is following me. Why? I have no idea. Although I have nothing against him, I’m not following back.

The wind wasn’t as strong as forecast, so my mood was elevated at the Anti-Inflation Book Shop on this gorgeous day. My thanks to the woman who bought Healthy Jewish Cooking by grill-master Steven Raichlen, and to Cabbie, who purchased Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtrey and The Room by Emma Donoghue; and to The Quiet man, who took home Witches Tarot by Ellen Dugan and a 100-piece jigsaw puzzle of a cat; and to the woman who overcompensated me for a fruit bowl made of metal.

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