The first teaser trailer Warner Bros. just released for the upcoming drama highlights a truly star-studded ensemble cast. Although the video clip below doesn’t give audience much of a taste of what the movie will be about, we do get to see the stars that include: Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, David Harbour, Jon Hamm, Ray Liotta, Kieran Culkin, Brendan Fraser, Noah Jupe, Julia Fox and Amy Seimetz.
The new crime thriller will first premiere at Tribeca and shortly after be released onto the HBO Max streaming platform, written by Ed Solomon that brought us “Bill and Ted“. The film is also directed by Steven Soderbergh, who is responsible for numerous hit movies including: “Ocean’s Eleven“, “Erin Brockovich“, “Traffic”, “The Informant! ” with Matt Damon, “The Laundromat” and so many others.
The film is set in the 1950’s Detroit and centers on a group of small-time criminals that are brought together to steal what they thought was just a simple document. Inevitably the plan goes down horribly wrong and now the group is set out to search for who hired them in order to discover the real purpose of whats going on.
With the annual Tribeca Film Festival just a few weeks away, the 12-day outdoor celebration will be held June 9 through June 20 and will be one of the first major festivals within North America to hold such a large in-person event coming out of the pandemic.
Soderbergh in a statement, “A year ago I was on lockdown in Tribeca,” and continued “So I never imagined we could return 12 months later with a new movie screening for a live audience in our neighborhood. I’m VERY happy.”
“No Sudden Move” is currently scheduled to premiere at Tribeca on June 18th and will be then be released to stream on HBO Max in the U.S. starting July 1st. Watch the teaser trailer below:
The first sneak peak trailer for Marvel Studios’ “Eternals” has dropped welcoming the next epic Superhero movie. The film is based on the comics of the same name that follow a group of eclectic god-like beings from another planet, an immortal race that have been on Earth living secretly for thousands of years. The heroes team up in order to protect humanity from a new threat, one of mankind’s oldest enemy, The Deviants.
Massive amounts of eyeballs watched the “Eternals” trailer, 77 million global views within the first 24 hours, which reportedly now marks the highest numbers for a Disney movie during the past 14 months.
The Academy Award winning director of “Nomadland” Chloe Zhao will direct and also co-wrote the screenplay for the upcoming movie.
The new team of Super Hereoes as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) will be the third Phase 4 movie and will boase major star power including: Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Gemma Chan, Kit Harington, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Barry Keoghan and Brian Tyree Henry
Check out the official first-look trailer for Marvel Studios’ “Eternals”:
Above: Photo Credit Lynxotic collage with Photo by Sadman Sakib on Unsplash
Visible in the Western U.S. states early Wednesday
This kickoff to the Lunar eclipses for the year will be the fantastically named “Super Flower Blood Moon”. Although the visibility during the eclipse will vary across the nation, the west coast will have a great, bright vantage, where clear skies oblige.
Also, unlike solar eclipses the Lunar variety is completely safe to view with the naked eye. Just watch your forecast as clouds vs. clear skies will be the determining factor when it comes to visibility.
The “flower” moniker is perhaps less significant than it sounds, but no less poetic. Call the flower moon due to that simple fact that it occurs in late May, coincident with the spring bloom.
Although there were four penumbral lunar eclipses in 2020, they were less spectacular that what is anticipated for the one we will get on May 26th. That’s because this month’s total lunar eclipse will have a more obvious darkening phases as the moon passes through the umbra, Earth’s inner, darker shadow.
The eclipse will be at least partly visible in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and Asia, while the total phase will only be seen from some of these locations. In the case of North America, the eclipse’s total phase, the time during which the moon turns orange or red in color, will only be seen from the western U.S., British Columbia, Alaska and parts of western Mexico.
Alternatively, if the full Super Flower Blood Moon has got you curious but you are not in the ideal spot to view from your backyard, livestreams will be hosted by observatories and astronomers around the world.
The west coast is the best coast for this moon
The rest of North America will only see the first part of the eclipse before the moon will set in the western sky. There will still be something worth seeing but it will be a partial view of the entire event.
If you are in the Los Angeles area Wednesday morning these are points worth noting:
Total duration: 4 hours, 6 minutes
Penumbral begins: 1:47 a.m. Wednesday
Partial begins: 2:44 a.m. Wednesday
Full begins: 4:11 a.m. Wednesday
Maximum: 4:18 a.m. Wednesday
Full ends: 4:25 a.m. Wednesday
Moonset: 5:52 a.m. Wednesday
If you are a photographer please be aware that the moon, at any time, is hard to capture without powerful telephoto lenses. A cell phone will retrieve an image but the distant orb will be far more visible with magnification.
The moon has many meanings and astrologically the event is significant also
Any discussion of all things lunar, blood moons and eclipses would certainly be congruent with a taste of the astrological perspective. We have it on good authority that this will be a Sagittarius full moon. There haas been prognostication that this will be a very challenging and “difficult” full moon eclipse, there are also signs that it will mark triumphs for some in the career dept., even accolades and awards.
A “major project” could be coming to a happy conclusion. As is always the case with Full moon lunar eclipses, if things are unclear and seem oddly incomplete, waiting 30 days can often bring the resolution that you are awaiting.
Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Oregon State University Press
Lessons to how we can better listen to the wisdom of plants
A blend of scientific, indigenous and personal experiences is where author Robin Wall Kimmerer memoir will take readers as she explores the relationship between humans and nature.
Robin’s first book, was also a collection of essays “Gathering Moss“. Her Second will follow suit and dig deeper into the genre while expanding the subject matter by way of a series of personal essays. She is devoted to focusing our attention on restoring ecological communities and humans’ relationship with land.
The view that Natural resources are not unconditionally “given” and should not be viewed as property but instead “gifts” from mother nature is a persistent thread of the narrative.
“I think now that it was a longing to comprehend this language I hear in the woods that led me to science, to learn over the years to speak fluent botany.”
Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer
Kimmerer is a botanist, teacher and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and with that pedigree she is able to write about her lessors from plants, animals and nature from both a scientific and spiritual perspective.
With her wealth of knowledge she has appeared in many YouTube videos as a guest speaker including below in “Gifts of the Land”.
We’ve provided a closer look at Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerers, along with a description, provided courtesy of Bookshop.org (and the publisher), and added some links for a variety of options where to purchase.
Braiding Sweetgrass:Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants
As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.
Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings–asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass–offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices.
In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.
For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
The Ice Road is the latest venture for Liam Neeson, who, no stranger to action packed thrillers, already boasts a huge list of theatrical hits including: “The Marksman“, “Honest Thief”, “Cold Pursuit“, “Non-Stop“, “Taken” and more.
This time, he’s back at it in the Netflix produced Ice fest. Neeson’s character, Mike, plays a big rig driver traveling through the dangerous icy roads of Canada. A remote diamond mine collapses, trapping workers with only a limited time to survive without freezing. Mike must lead a seemingly impossible rescue mission transporting necessary equipment needed to save the 26 trapped miners.
In a sense with plot is a hybrid of Neeson’s two most dominant sub-genres, the violent triumph of the good guy against obvious pure evil and, initially in this case, the survival hero against the odds. As the trailer shows, the evil enemy does emerge, apparently in the form of the corrupt mine company that conspired in the collapse and thereby add even more tension to the already dire straits.
Though not a surprise in terms of genre, there is a sense that Liam Neeson is pushing all the buttons he’s pushed so well before, and with a star cameo from Laurence Fishburne as the man charged with putting together the crack team of misfits to make the rescue happen, it looks like this could be another winner.
Along with Liam, cast includes: Benjamin Walker, Amber Midthunder, Marcus Thomas and Laurence Fishburne. Check out the official trailer that just dropped. “The Ice Road” will be available to watch on the streaming platform starting June 25, 2021.
Quotes from new book are illuminating to say the least
In a report from The Guardian, based on pre-release galleys of “Battle for The Soul” written by Atlantic staff writer Edward Isaac-Dovere, the private exchanges about Trump bore little resemblance to the public niceties and careful self-censoring that went on during “the former guy’s” disastrous reign from the Oval Office.
According to the excerpts shared with The Guardian, in direct quoted pages former President Obama slammed Trump throughout the 2016 campaign and during 45’s term in office. According to Atlantic staff writer Edward Isaac-Dovere in his forthcoming book. Obama referenced Trump as a “madman”, “lunatic”, “racist”, “sexist pig” and a “corrupt motherfu–er”.
More often: ‘I didn’t think it would be this bad.’ Sometimes: ‘I didn’t think we’d have a racist, sexist pig.’ Depending on the outrage of the day … a passing ‘that fucking lunatic’ with a shake of his head.”
obama Quoted in “battle for the soul” by Edward-Isaac Dovere
Obama isn’t the only person that has something unflattering to say about the Trump, as news that the New York attorney general’s office will be going forward with a now-criminal investigation of the Trump Organization, Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer and fixer for 45 hilariously tweeted Don behind bars:
As more documents are reviewed by the #NYAG and #NYDA, it appears that the troubles for Donald #Trump will keep on coming! Soon enough, Donald and Associates will be held responsible for their actions. pic.twitter.com/nOvd7Dry81
We’ve provided a look at Battle for the Soul, by Edward-Isaac Dovere, below, along with a description, provided courtesy of the Bookshop (and the publisher), along with some links for a variety of options where to purchase.
Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat
The 2020 presidential campaign was a defining moment for America. As Donald Trump and his nativist populism cowed the Republican Party into submission, many Democrats–haunted by Hillary Clinton’s shocking loss in 2016, which led to a four-year-long identity crisis–were convinced he would be unbeatable.
Their party and the country, it seemed, might never recover. How, then, did Democrats manage to win the presidency, especially after the longest primary race and the biggest field ever?
How did they keep themselves united through an internal struggle between newly empowered progressives and establishment forces–playing out against a pandemic, an economic crisis, and a new racial reckoning?
Edward-Isaac Dovere’s Battle for the Soul is the searing, fly-on-the-wall account of the Democrats’ journey through recalibration and rebirth.
Dovere traces this process from the early days in the wilderness of the post-Obama era, though the jockeying of potential candidates, to the backroom battles and exhausting campaigns, to the unlikely triumph of the man few expected to win, and through the inauguration and insurrection at the Capitol.
Dovere draws on years of on-the-ground reporting and contemporaneous conversations with the key players–whether in Pete Buttigieg’s hotel suite in Des Moines an hour before he won the Iowa caucuses or Joe Biden’s first-ever interview in the Oval Office–as well as aides, advisors, and voters.
With unparalleled access and an insider’s command of the campaign, Battle for the Soul offers a compelling look at the policies, politics, people and the often absurd process of running for president. This fresh and timely story brings you on the trail, into the private rooms and along to eavesdrop on critical conversations. You will never see campaigns or this turning point in our history the same way again.
Revelations already leaked into de-classified public domain are enough to shock and amaze
Now that UFO sightings, also known as UAP (“unidentified aerial phenomena”) encounters have become too numerous and too tangible to dismiss as “swamp gas” or “reflected light” or anything of the kind, the next step is for the Pentagon to reveal much more about what it already knows. And from all accounts; it’s a lot.
Recently, for example in the CBS “60 Minutes” segment that aired on Sunday, May 16th, 2021 the growing body of de-classified data and credible accounts from government, ex-government and military personnel has been thoroughly cataloged and competently explained, the the degree that it is possible to explain at all.
In an interview exchange between CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker and Lue Elizondo, who was in US military intelligence for 20 years and was part of “what The Pentagon called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, or AATIP, the discussion turn to the amazing current state of publicly available information on UFO sightings by the military.
Lue Elizondo:
“The mission of AATIP was quite simple. It was to collect and analyze information involving anomalous aerial vehicles, what I guess in the vernacular you call them UFOs. We call them UAPs
Imagine a technology that can do 6-to-700 g-forces, that can fly at 13,000 miles an hour, that can evade radar and that can fly through air and water and possibly space. And oh, by the way, has no obvious signs of propulsion, no wings, no control surfaces and yet still can defy the natural effects of Earth’s gravity. That’s precisely what we’re seeing.
In some cases there are simple explanations for what people are witnessing. But there are some that, that are not. We’re not just simply jumping to a conclusion that’s saying, “Oh, that’s a UAP out there.” We’re going through our due diligence. Is it some sort of new type of cruise missile technology that China has developed? Is it some sort of high-altitude balloon that’s conducting reconnaissance? Ultimately when you have exhausted all those what ifs and you’re still left with the fact that this is in our airspace and it’s real, that’s when it becomes compelling, and that’s when it becomes problematic.”
A series of revelations that are building and increasing, not a scattered random sequence
The segment went on to interview two of the four pilots that were witnesses to an very close encounter with a UAP during a training mission with the USS Nimitz carrier strike group 100 miles southwest of San Diego, CA in 2004.
CBS News interviewed them, David Fravor, a graduate of the Top Gun naval flight school and commander of the F/A-18F squadron on the USS Nimitz; and flying at his wing, Lieutenant Alex Dietrich, who has never spoken publicly about the encounter:
“For a week, the advanced new radar on a nearby ship, the USS Princeton, had detected what operators called “multiple anomalous aerial vehicles” over the horizon, descending 80,000 feet in less than a second. On November 14, Fravor and Dietrich, each with a weapons systems officer in the backseat, were diverted to investigate. They found an area of roiling whitewater the size of a 737 in an otherwise calm, blue sea. “
The interview went on to describe in great detail the shockingly real and yet impossible to grasp behavior of the UAP and how hard it is to fathom the origin of something so advanced and so far beyond anything we can imagine as being possible to build by humans with current technological means.
‘Either or’ is a short list of what could explain the mysteries
According to various unnamed pilots, of the many that have had sometimes multiple highly corroborated and documented UAP encounters, there are three likely possible sources for these “anomalous aerial vehicles” origin:
secret U.S. technology,
an adversary’s spy vehicle
something otherworldly.
What no-one, outside the “UFO fringe element” has speculated to is the exact meaning and source of “something otherworldly” being involved, or a 4th possibility that this is the most advanced and elaborate hoax ever devised to create the illusion of an ultra sophisticated entity “watching” us.
This last completely speculative statement underscores just how unlikely it is, with this much evidence already uncovered, that this is any kind of “hoax” at all, and how that would be even more far fetched than #3 above, an “otherworldly” explanation.
Now that, since last August, AATIP has been reactivated by the Pentagon, and it’s now called the UAP task force, more information has likely been cataloged since service members now are encouraged to report any strange encounters.
In December 2020, while still head of the intelligence committee, Senator Marco Rubio, of all people, asked the director of national intelligence and the Pentagon to present Congress an unclassified report.
That report will be next major step in this building story. It is scheduled to be released to the Senate on June 1st, 2021.
Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Johns Hopkins University Press
There’s a massive migration coming as the physical and political landscape changes
A gradual, subtle, yet immensely important shift is underway across the planet. That shift is the change in thinking that will be required to accompany the changes that we now know, for a fact, are coming. Global warming, sea level rise, mass decentralization and migration and many more macro trends that are no longer in doubt but will be a reality to cope with.
Taking the positive approach to this – searching for solutions to the many huge geopolitical and technological issues that we face, is a trend that must come to the front and center of our dialog about the future.
Although, it is a book more thought of as a guide for city planners and other professionals, Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities is fascinating evidence of where these forced changes could lead, and what potentials can be unlocked by the opportunities that will inevitably arise from the extreme, changing circumstances.
A great step in the right direction, we’ve provided a look at Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities, by Matthew E. Kahn and Mac McComas, below, along with a description, provided courtesy of the Bookshop (and the publisher), along with some links for a variety of options where to purchase.
The urban centers of New York City, Seattle, and San Francisco have enjoyed tremendous economic success and population growth in recent years. At the same time, cities like Baltimore and Detroit have experienced population loss and economic decline. People living in these cities are not enjoying the American Dream of upward mobility.
How can post-industrial cities struggling with crime, pollution, poverty, and economic decline make a comeback? In Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities, Matthew E. Kahn and Mac McComas explore why some people and places thrive during a time of growing economic inequality and polarization–and some don’t.
They examine six underperforming cities–Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis–that have struggled from 1970 to present. Drawing from the field of urban economics, Kahn and McComas ask how the public and private sectors can craft policies and make investments that create safe, green cities where young people reach their full potential. The authors analyze long-run economic and demographic trends.
They also highlight recent lessons from urban economics in labor market demand and supply, neighborhood quality of life, and local governance while scrutinizing strategies to lift people out of poverty. These cities are all at a fork in the road.
Depending on choices made today, they could enjoy a significant comeback–but only if local leaders are open to experimentation and innovation while being honest about failure and constructive evaluation.
Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities provides a roadmap for how urban policy makers, community members, and practitioners in the public and private sector can work together with researchers to discover how all cities can solve the most pressing modern urban challenges.
A unique talent for choosing and presenting exactly the theme and subject of the moment, and for posterity
Above:Photo from ‘The Big Short’ courtesy of Paramount
Very few authors have the intense feeling for the “zeitgeist” that Michael has shown throughout his long career. The ability to capture the spirit of the times so well is also possibly the reason why so many of his books have been snapped up and made into successful films. Examples are “The Big Short” (Christian Bale), “Moneyball” (Brad Pitt), “The Blind Side” (Sandra Bullock), all three of these also received Best Picture Oscar nominations.
While perhaps not an author to be remembered as a high literary genius such as James Joyce or William Shakespeare, the body of work, as a chronicle of modern times seen through the lens of his minds eye is, nevertheless, substantive and engaging. While “The Big Short”, both the book and subsequent film, capture with amazing clarity a confusing period that has been in many ways glossed over, even willfully, by those that were partially responsible but never held to account.
Though it remains to be seen how the future will look back on the 2020 novel coronavirus era, “Premonition” has, once more, the same potential to become one, potentially definitive portrait, of the crisis and it’s emergence into a full blown worldwide pandemic.
Now, soon, “The Premonition” is set to be produced by Amy Pascal for Pascal Pictures, with Rachel O’Connor. Directors are slated to be Phil Lord and Chris Miller who are mostly known for lighter fare.
To make it easier a great selection of Michael Lewis’ books are featured front and center, below, along with descriptions, provided courtesy of the Bookshop (and the various publishers), and with some links for a variety of options of where to purchase.
Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’s taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.
The characters you will meet in these pages are as fascinating as they are unexpected. A thirteen-year-old girl’s science project on transmission of an airborne pathogen develops into a very grown-up model of disease control.
A local public-health officer uses her worm’s-eye view to see what the CDC misses, and reveals great truths about American society.
A secret team of dissenting doctors, nicknamed the Wolverines, has everything necessary to fight the pandemic: brilliant backgrounds, world-class labs, prior experience with the pandemic scares of bird flu and swine flu…everything, that is, except official permission to implement their work.
Michael Lewis is not shy about calling these people heroes for their refusal to follow directives that they know to be based on misinformation and bad science. Even the internet, as crucial as it is to their exchange of ideas, poses a risk to them. They never know for sure who else might be listening in.
The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn’t shine and the SEC doesn’t dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can’t pay their debts.
The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren’t talking.
Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar’s Poker.
Out of a handful of unlikely-really unlikely-heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our time.
Michael Lewis was fresh out of Princeton and the London School of Economics when he landed a job at Salomon Brothers, one of Wall Street’s premier investment firms.
During the next three years, Lewis rose from callow trainee to bond salesman, raking in millions for the firm and cashing in on a modern-day gold rush. Liar’s Poker is the culmination of those heady, frenzied years–a behind-the-scenes look at a unique and turbulent time in American business.
From the frat-boy camaraderie of the forty-first-floor trading room to the killer instinct that made ambitious young men gamble everything on a high-stakes game of bluffing and deception, here is Michael Lewis’s knowing and hilarious insider’s account of an unprecedented era of greed, gluttony, and outrageous fortune.
Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball.
In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis follows the low-budget Oakland A’s, visionary general manager Billy Beane, and the strange brotherhood of amateur baseball theorists. They are all in search of new baseball knowledge–insights that will give the little guy who is willing to discard old wisdom the edge over big money. Also made into a hit movie starring Brad Pitt, Moneyball is a book that exposes human nature, and how it can suddenly be overcome when unique perspectives lead to innovative choices.
When we first meet him, Michael Oher is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or how to read or write.
He takes up football, and school, after a rich, white, Evangelical family plucks him from the streets. Then two great forces alter Oher: the family’s love and the evolution of professional football itself into a game where the quarterback must be protected at any cost.
Our protagonist becomes the priceless package of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback’s greatest vulnerability, his blind side.
In Michael Lewis’s game-changing bestseller, a small group of Wall Street iconoclasts realize that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of insiders.
They band together–some of them walking away from seven-figure salaries–to investigate, expose, and reform the insidious new ways that Wall Street generates profits. If you have any contact with the market, even a retirement account, this story is happening to you. Billions have been spent by Wall Street firms and stock exchanges to gain the advantage of a millisecond. “Is it a scam?” 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft asks during his interview with the author, It’s bigger than a scam, Lewis says.
Lewis further explains how ordinary investors are affected and argues that high-frequency traders have created instability in the stock market — for everyone. A reoccurring metaphor Lewis uses in his book “Flash Boys” is one of “prey and predators.” According to Lewis, the prey is “anybody who’s actually an investor in the stock market.”
Michael Lewis’s brilliant narrative of the Trump administration’s botched presidential transition takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its leaders through willful ignorance and greed.
The government manages a vast array of critical services that keep us safe and underpin our lives from ensuring the safety of our food and drugs and predicting extreme weather events to tracking and locating black market uranium before the terrorists do. The Fifth Risk masterfully and vividly unspools the consequences if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works.
Forty years ago, Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original papers that invented the field of behavioral economics.
One of the greatest partnerships in the history of science, Kahneman and Tversky’s extraordinary friendship incited a revolution in Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation, and made much of Michael Lewis’s own work possible. In The Undoing Project, Lewis shows how their Nobel Prize-winning theory of the mind altered our perception of reality.
What you didn’t even know you needed: a zombie heist movie!
Director Zack Snyder has been hard at work. As most are patiently awaiting the upcoming “Justice League” movie to drop on HBO Max on March 18, 2021, another entertainment gem has landed on our laps.
Now “Army of the Dead” is here and will follow to an online audience on May 21st after first going for the live in theater crowds, newly legal across the USA.
The initial theatrical only stint will be the widest release in company history after limited engagements for Oscars hopefuls in recent years. Naturally, this has caught the attention of the entire entertainment industry
A new teaser trailer for the next action packed film by Snyder, this time for the Netflix streaming platform has dropped called “Army of the Dead”.
According to Netflix, the film will follow a group of fearless mercenaries who decide to take the ultimate gamble during a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas. The group breaks away from the quarantine zone to pull off one of the wildest heists ever attempted.
“It is a full-blown, balls-to-the-wall zombie heist movie, so it’s genre-on-genre in a great way,” Snyder told EW.com. “So you expect pure zombie mayhem, and you get that, 100 percent. But also you get these really amazing characters on a fantastic journey. It’s going to surprise people that there’s a lot of warmth and real emotion with these great characters.”
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The movie will be released to stream on Netflix on May 21, 2021, with plans to make the film into a franchise in the form of a prequel anime series.
Starring Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Ana de la Reguera, Matthias Schweighöfer, Tig Notaro, Nora Arnezeder, Hiroyuki Sanada, Raúl Castillo, Michael Cassidy, and Garret Dillahunt.
‘Seaspiracy‘ was met with a suspicious amount of criticism in the media…
Above: photo / Netflix Seaspiracy
Which, for some, can be added reason to view it anyway, with open eyes, and judge for oneself. The same goes for many of the films show here below. It’s understandable that we are all still recovering (many in a literal sense) from the year long emergency crisis related to the novel coronavirus, and “crisis fatigue” has put the climate out of mind, to a degree.
Maybe it’s just that we are all tired of being scared out of our wits? That makes sense for sure. However, the situation can only improve with increased awareness leading to action.
“Seaspiracy“, regardless of its possible shortcomings, many of which were very convenient to the industrial fishing interests that are exposed in the film, there is one theme that runs throughout that is the one that deserves more and more attention.
Forget the shocking facts and figures. That’s all obvious news by now in many areas including the challenges to the ocean and it’s ecosystem. The message is the overwhelming importance of both Industry and Government in solving a problem that has been, in essence, created primarily by those same interests and entities.
In the film there is a thread of awakening that occurred in the mind of director / author Ali Tabrizi. He explains how he was very focused on individual responsibility and issues like plastic drinking straws and how they end up polluting the ocean.
The awakening came about when he dug deeper, with hands-on research, detailed in the film, and found out that, basically, the straws were a tiny, infinitesimal percentage of the plastic destroying the ocean. The real causes, it turned out, of the huge and growing problem traced back to…. you guessed it Industry and Governments.
Likewise, the Kiss the Ground documentary (also below) presents a strong and eminently sensible case for a sure-fire way to reduce carbon in the atmosphere by massive amounts. The film has been popular but there are many more “tech” based ideas that are getting a lot of attention also, and it’s easy to imagine millions being pumped into some wacko expensive high tech “solution” when the real-world solution (such as outlined in the movie) is staring us all in the face.
Why? Because to implement the Soil Regeneration systems put forth in the film would require the support of… wait for it…. The huge Industrial Agribusiness Complex and Governments. To be fair the Biden administration has put forward a plan to reward farmers that are using regenerative soil systems and that is definitely needed. But will it be enough? Will it be blocked when it hits the Senate and Congress?
In the mean time it is these films, and more certainly to come, are a lifeline to real solutions, and in particular increasing clarity regarding where the actual, devastating problems lie. And they are essential in countering the “pro-pollution propaganda” that can be so cleverly disguised by organizations that are dedicated to getting “rich” by practices that amount to planetary suicide.
Passionate about ocean life, a filmmaker sets out to document the harm that humans do to marine species — and uncovers alarming global corruption.
Kiss the Ground is a full-length documentary narrated by Woody Harrelson that sheds light on an “new, old approach” to farming called “regenerative agriculture”
In celebration of Earth Day 2021, Apple TV+ will debut “The Year Earth Changed,” an original documentary special narrated by Emmy and BAFTA Award-winning broadcaster David Attenborough. “During this most difficult year, many people have reappraised the value and beauty of the natural world and taken great comfort from it,” said Richard Attenborough. “But the lockdown also created a unique experiment that has thrown light on the impact we have on the natural world. The stories of how wildlife responded have shown that making even small changes to what we do can make a big difference.”
What if confronting the climate crisis is the best chance we’ll ever get to build a better world?
Filmed over 211 shoot days in nine countries and five continents over four years, This Changes Everything is an epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change.
Directed by Avi Lewis, and inspired by Naomi Klein’s international non-fiction bestseller This Changes Everything, the film presents seven powerful portraits of communities on the front lines, from Montana’s Powder River Basin to the Alberta Tar Sands, from the coast of South India to Beijing and beyond.
Presented by James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, Lewis Hamilton, Novak Djokovic and Chris Paul — a revolutionary new film about meat, protein and strength.
Cowspriacy
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret is a groundbreaking feature-length environmental documentary following intrepid filmmaker Kip Andersen as he uncovers the most destructive industry facing the planet today – and investigates why the world’s leading environmental organizations are too afraid to talk about it.
Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, water consumption and pollution, is responsible for more greenhouse gases than the transportation industry, and is a primary driver of rainforest destruction, species extinction, habitat loss, topsoil erosion, ocean “dead zones,” and virtually every other environmental ill. Yet it goes on, almost entirely unchallenged.
Chasing Coral
Coral reefs around the world are vanishing at an unprecedented rate. A team of divers, photographers and scientists set out on a thrilling ocean adventure to discover why and to reveal the underwater mystery to the world.
The film took more than three years to shoot and is the result of 500+ hours of underwater footage, coral bleaching submissions from volunteers in 30 countries, as well as support from more than 500 people in various locations around the world.
A Plastic Ocean
When he discovers the world’s oceans brimming with plastic waste, a documentary filmmaker investigates the pollution’s environmental impacts. Starring:Tanya Streeter
In the center of the Pacific Ocean gyre researchers found more plastic than plankton. A Plastic Ocean documents the newest science, proving how plastics, once they enter the oceans, break up into small particulates that enter the food chain where they attract toxins like a magnet. These toxins are stored in seafood’s fatty tissues, and eventually consumed by us.
Coming from Focus Features, “Stillwater” follows an American oil-rig roughneck from Oklahoma who travels to the French city Marseille, to see his daughter, who is now in prison for a murder she said she did not commit.
FIRST LOOK: Matt Damon, Abigail Breslin, Camille Cottin and Lilou Siauvaud in #STILLWATER, a film by Tom McCarthy. In theaters July 30. pic.twitter.com/3FP4CKkAvd
Matt Damon stars as the father, Bill Baker, who at every turn is confronted with obstacles; language barrier, cultural clashes and navigating complicated foreign legal systems. No matter, Baker immerses himself into life on the other side of the world in order to exonerate his daughter.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Director Tom McCarthy explains Damon’s character – “He’s a guy that’s had a difficult life, he’s struggled, but he sort of tried to make amends and do what’s right, I think, when we meet him”.
This dramatic thriller will be in theaters only starting July 30th, 2021. Directed by Tom McCarthy, the Oscar Award winning filmmaker responsible for “Spotlight”. Along with Damon, the film stars Abigail Breslin and Camille Cottin.
Echoes of the Amanda Knox ordeal, as well as “Taken” with Liam Neeson come to mind but neither quite fit, which is a good thing. Not even gonna mention the Bourne Identity connections! Check it out below for yourself and see if it feels derivative or original and if Matt is inhabiting the cowboy-esque character in an interesting way…
Singer Grimes made a cameo and was present alongside partner Elon Musk on the recent Saturday Night Live episode. The artist posted photos taken backstage, including with musical guest Miley Cyrus, a few days later, adding that she was recently hospitalized due to a panic attack.
This isn’t the first time Grimes has been open and shared information about her mental health issues, explaining in a 2012 interview she struggled with bad social anxiety and sometimes experienced panic attacks.
Grimes played Princess Peach in a Super Mario type themed sketch. It was also revealed the two went to a crypto-themed after party. Its not exactly clear if social anxiety or other factors played into those situations.
The artist also posted the following on her Instagram page:
Forgot to post these cuz I somehow caused myself to have a panic attack and went to the hospital yesterday which tbh was quite scary and I suppose it’s a good time to start therapy 😑😑😑. But nonetheless – wowwwww @mileycyrus is good live and so chill! So grateful to the SNL team for being so kind and letting me sneak in as princess peach snd so proud of my beautiful E (which I know will upset the grimes fans so I apologize in advance) but he killed it
National Alliance on Mental Health
Grimes sharing her struggles only helps to highlight the reality that millions of Americans face daily with mental health issues. The month of May also happens to be mental health awareness month. Now you are not alone. If you are struggling and need support. The NAMI HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–8 p.m., ET. 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or info@nami.org
New challenges as the two “try” to get their way to parenthood
The Apple Original series, which in Season 1 followed Nikki, played by Esther Smith, and Jason played by Rafe Spall, as a London couple. Unsurprisingly, as the title gives away, they are trying and having some difficulty conceiving. With the realization that maybe adoption is the only route for them to raise a child, the two are put to the test and experience a rollercoaster of emotions along the way.
Season 2, which is set to release to Apple TV+ users on May 21, will continue to follow the journey to the next level as the two have finally been approved to adopt and take the huge step of welcoming a child into their home. This leads to challenges, such as finding a child they connect with and making a decision between a girl or boy. Juggling all the adoption events, school visits, all while also maintaining work schedules, wannabe family life soon becomes a whole lot more to deal with than Nikki and Jason anticipated.
The cast will also include the return of the Season 1 primary ensemble including: Imelda Staunton, Oliver Chris, Ophelia Lovibond, Darren Boyd and Robyn Cara.
Check out the below official trailer for “Trying” Season 2: The first two episodes will debut globally on May 21 and the remaining six episodes will be released weekly every Friday.
Scorsese’s latest and long awaited big project, titled “Killers Of The Flower Moon,” has been in development under Paramount since early 2019. The Apple Studios film started Production in April 2021 in Osage County, Oklahoma and no release date has yet been announced.
The film is an adaptation of the 2017 book, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” by bestselling author David Grann. The book follows the federal investigation into the series of “accidents” and murders of Osage County Native Americans in 1920s Oklahoma, which later became known as the “Reign of Terror”. It’s a slow burning true story that will lend itself well to Scorsese’s hardboiled, historical take on narrative film.
In a statement announcing the official start of production, Scorsese said:
“To be able to tell this story on the land where these events took place is incredibly important and critical to allowing us to portray an accurate depiction of the time and people. We’re grateful to Apple, the Oklahoma Film and Music Office and The Osage Nation, especially all our Osage consultants and cultural advisors, as we prepare for this shoot. We’re excited to start working with our local cast and crew to bring this story to life on screen and immortalize a time in American history that should not be forgotten.”
–– Martin Scorsese
The all-star cast to includes Leonardo DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart, Native American actress Lily Gladstone as his wife Mollie Burkhart. Robert De Niro as William Hale and Jesse Plemons as Tom White. In addition, the cast includes: Tantoo Cardinal, Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins, Jillian Dion, William Belleau, Jason Isbell, Louis Cancelmi, Scott Shepherd, Sturgill Simpson and many others. The film will include multiple indigenous actors in order to provide a respectable and honest representation relating to the movie’s sensitive subject matter.
Eddie Brock played once more by Tom Hardy is back. The first “Venom” film released in 2018 only briefly introduced the audience to the character from the Marvel comics.
This time around we see Brock come to embrace his alter-ego / Venom symbiote. Hilariously, even while learning to cook breakfast, where he attempts to stave off the need for human flesh in lieu of chocolate, as seen in the trailer below.
The just over 2 minute clip is jammed packed with the absurdity, mystery, violence and gore!
On par for the pandemic course, many films, including this one “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” was originally scheduled for October 2020, then set for this summer. After multiple delays, Sony has now cemented its current release for the fall for September 24, 2021, only in theaters.
As the subtitle of the movie underscores…Real Carnage is here
Thus, enter the villain, Cletus Kasady, a crazed serial killer played by Woody Harrelson who continues where the first movie left off, imprisioned. What Eddie and Cletus have in common, don’t worry, not really a spoiler, we will most likely see the breakdown of how his character becomes a symbiote host that transforms him into Carnage. In the clip it looks like his reaction to the chemicals pumped into him, meant for his execution, play a major role.
The trailer also teases a glimpse Shriek who is being held as the Ravencroft Institute (akin to Arkham Aslym). Her mutant powers allow her to manipulate sound energy in powerful and dangerous ways, firing off blasts of sounds. And symbiote, like Venom, are vulnerable to sound, and we can presume she plays the villain in Eddie Brock’s world (and possibly Carnage).
The film also stars Michelle Williams, Reid Scott and Naomie Harrie.
In a sudden about-face Elon Musk announced that Tesla would not accept Bitcoin for its environmentally friendly electric vehicles after all. This, after the company made big news when it purchased $1.5 billion of the cryptocurrency which was revealed in an SEC filing.
In the first quarter report of 2021 the company revealed that it sold a portion of its Bitcoin and netted a $101 million profit. That number represented nearly a fourth of the reported total profits for the quarter.
An even larger contributing factor to the positive news at the time was the massive sales of regulatory credits were $518 million. In other words, profit from Bitcoin and government subsidies was basically 100% of the upside. Car sales, not so much.
Enter the massive media frenzy over the energy use “wasted” on Bitcoin mining and you have a PR disaster waiting to happen for Tesla and Musk. Naturally, clever lad that he is, it was prudent to cancel, at least temporarily the policy of allowing customers to pay with Bitcoin.
Odd thing is, there are many worse things sucking up energy than Bitcoin. And the mining will not stop or slow down because Tesla is not getting any for its cars. But the perception that there’s a “great cost to the environment” from crypto-mining is enough to make this sudden announcement mandatory from a PR standpoint.
Though not mentioned in the tweet where this policy change was announced, it is unlikely that Tesla will go forward with accepting Dogecoin, which was mentioned recently by Musk also, due to the perceived similarities in the mining process.
In the statement attached to Musk’s tweet he also states that they will potentially use a crypto currency if it can be used at an energy cost of less than 1% of Bitcoin per transaction.
This is a separate issue from the mining energy usage but it has also been a criticism that the energy expended to transact using Bitcoin is very high, compared to what is a separate question. Perception is at the root, but wanting more efficient crypto is certainly a laudable goal.
This part of the statement will no doubt lead to feverish speculation as to which cryptocurrency might meet his stated requirements.
Elon Musk’s support for cryptocurrency is, like his commitment to sustainable energy, a positive stance and, before his personal success became completely overblown, a courageous one.
Taking on the fossil fuel industry, it’s easy to forget, was no easy feat in the early days. And, similarly, the inevitable upcoming clash between crypto-adherents and governments (printers of fiat currencies) will need established eminent “super-citizens” to give crypto a chance of survival.
For that reason it is good to see that this does no represent a rejection of crypto itself on Musk’s part, but a necessary response to mounting criticism based on the perception of hypocrisy.
You can bet that, if there is a way to mine with sustainable energy sources (actually in many ways already happening) he will reverse his stance yet again.
Sometimes it seems like the truth is hidden. Not just hidden but deliberately withheld while obfuscation and misdirection are everywhere. If you want to learn about how to survive, how to live and prosper, more and more it feels like the superficial sources (including “free” online articles) are pushing an agenda.
And don’t even think about social media – we all know where the interests of Facebook lie. In fitness they call it “no pain – no gain” and the mental equivalent of that is reading. Not that it has to be painful! Quite the contrary. But it is the act of digging deeper, of passing over the fist 50 google search results, or, hell, switching to a different engine, it’s the extra effort that often reveals the gold.
Based on all of the above it only makes sense to put together a list of new, hot and meaningful books you may not have seen. With so much going on in all our lives, even the proven authors and the clearly fascinating can escape our notice. Accordingly, with the help of descriptions by Bookshop.org and the various publishers, below a selection of the cream of the current crop, along with options showing where they can be procured…
So if you are a beginner an intermediate or even advanced learner that wants to know more, these are the best books to really dig into the phenomena and explosion of information and viewpoints. To make it easier they are featured front and center, below, along with descriptions, provided courtesy of the Bookshop (and the various publishers), and with some links for a variety of options of where to purchase.
Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’s taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.
The characters you will meet in these pages are as fascinating as they are unexpected. A thirteen-year-old girl’s science project on transmission of an airborne pathogen develops into a very grown-up model of disease control. A local public-health officer uses her worm’s-eye view to see what the CDC misses, and reveals great truths about American society.
A secret team of dissenting doctors, nicknamed the Wolverines, has everything necessary to fight the pandemic: brilliant backgrounds, world-class labs, prior experience with the pandemic scares of bird flu and swine flu…everything, that is, except official permission to implement their work.
Michael Lewis is not shy about calling these people heroes for their refusal to follow directives that they know to be based on misinformation and bad science. Even the internet, as crucial as it is to their exchange of ideas, poses a risk to them. They never know for sure who else might be listening in.
The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War
In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history. Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the “Bomber Mafia,” asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal?
In contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion. In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, “Was it worth it?” Things might have gone differently had LeMay’s predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge.
Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war.
Billie Eilish is a phenomenon. With distinctive visual flare and darkly poignant lyrics that are unparalleled among music icons of the 21st century, Billie is a musician who stands out from the crowd. Between her record-shattering award-winning music and her uncompromising and unapologetic attitude, it’s no surprise that her fanbase continues to grow by millions month after month. She is that rare combination of wildly popular and highly respected for her prodigious talent, a once in a generation superstar. Now in this stunning visual narrative journey through her life, she is ready to share more with her devoted audience for the first time, including hundreds of never-before-seen photos.
This gorgeous book will capture the essence of Billie inside and out, offering readers personal glimpses into her childhood, her life on tour, and more. A must-have for any fan.
The Anthropocene is the current geologic age, in which humans have profoundly reshaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his groundbreaking podcast, bestselling author John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale–from the QWERTY keyboard and sunsets to Canada geese and Penguins of Madagascar.
Funny, complex, and rich with detail, the reviews chart the contradictions of contemporary humanity. As a species, we are both far too powerful and not nearly powerful enough, a paradox that came into sharp focus as we faced a global pandemic that both separated us and bound us together. John Green’s gift for storytelling shines throughout this masterful collection. The Anthropocene Reviewed is a open-hearted exploration of the paths we forge and an unironic celebration of falling in love with the world.
From preeminent math personality and author of The Joy of x, a brilliant and endlessly appealing explanation of calculus–how it works and why it makes our lives immeasurably better.
Without calculus, we wouldn’t have cell phones, TV, GPS, or ultrasound. We wouldn’t have unraveled DNA or discovered Neptune or figured out how to put 5,000 songs in your pocket.
Though many of us were scared away from this essential, engrossing subject in high school and college, Steven Strogatz’s brilliantly creative, down-to-earth history shows that calculus is not about complexity; it’s about simplicity. It harnesses an unreal number–infinity–to tackle real-world problems, breaking them down into easier ones and then reassembling the answers into solutions that feel miraculous.
Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves (a phenomenon predicted by calculus). Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes “backwards” sometimes; how to make electricity with magnets; how to ensure your rocket doesn’t miss the moon; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS.
As Strogatz proves, calculus is truly the language of the universe. By unveiling the principles of that language, Infinite Powers makes us marvel at the world anew.
Eric Ripert is the chef and co-owner of the acclaimed restaurant Le Bernardin, and the winner of countless Michelin stars, well known for his exquisite, clean, seafood-centered cuisine. But lately, Ripert has found himself reaching for vegetables as his main food source–and doing so, as is his habit, with great intent and care. In Vegetable Simple, Ripert turns his singular culinary imagination to vegetables: their beauty, their earthiness, their nourishing qualities, and the many ways they can be prepared.
From vibrant Sweet Pea Soup to Fava Bean and Mint Salad, from warming Mushroom Bolognese to Roasted Carrots with Harissa, Eric Ripert articulates a vision for vegetables that are prepared simply, without complex steps or ingredients, allowing their essential qualities to shine and their color and flavor to remain uncompromised. Complete with gorgeous photos by renowned photographer Nigel Parry, this is a necessary guide for the way we eat today.
Was it really a knock on Crypto, or was there a hidden plug in the details?
Elon’s big night in NYC was awkward, as expected and he should probably keep his day job. The highlight, for pretty much everyone on earth (not sure about mars), was the Weekend Update segment where Musk appeared as Lloyd Ostertag, a crypto “expert” dressed in professorial garb.
Watch the clip below, and you will notice that, although the punchline was a dis’ on Doge, saying, or rather “admitting” that it’s a “hustle”, a detailed listening to Musk’s entire speech reveals some gems that go in the opposite direction, for those that follow crypto, and, well, money.
The dollar is just as real (or unreal) as DogeCoin
In a comedy skit looking like it was designed to avoid scrutiny by the SEC, the writers at SNL, presumably with Musk’s help, decided to put a negative spin on both mentions of DOGE during the show. First, in an exchange with his Mom, Maye, Musk sheepishly grins and nods after she says she “hopes it won’t be DogeCoin” referring to her Mother’s day gift.
He eventually capitulates and, after saying that DogeCoin is “about as real as that dollar” he “concedes” that “it’s a hustle”.
Elon Musk, as LLoyd Ostertag on Saturday Night Live, May 8th 2021
Later, in the “Weekend Update” segment Musk plays “Lloyd Ostertag” who calls himself the “DogeFather” – and the anchors ask repeatedly, in a somewhat dismissive tone, “what is DogeCoin?”. The gag is that he, as Ostertag, eventually capitulates and, after saying that DogeCoin is “about as real as that dollar”, “concedes” that “it’s a hustle”.
While the bulk of his appearance in the segment does reconfirm and support his actual views, in a smirking and slightly deprecating way, as Ostertag”, it also underscores a deeper truth that cryptocurrencies are “as real as the dollar” (some would say more real). However, in the end, the punchline is a negative way to sweep all of that away, with a nod to Buffet, Munger and the SEC, thereby toeing the line and insuring himself one less courtroom headache.
DOGE has the last laugh? Is Crypto dead? Doubtful…
As of Sunday, May 9th, DOGE is hovering around .51 cents. The Muskian peak was .74 cents on May 7th. This means that, although there was a decline on the “news” that Musk would not break the SEC rules by blatantly pumping DogeCoin on live national TV, the coin is still up approximately 33% for the week, 734% for the last month and 19,446% for the last year. And, according to Elon Musk, aka Lloyd Ostertag, aka the DogeFather, it is “about as real” as that dollar in your pocket.
Is any chosen form of “money” any more of a “hustle” than another?
Elon’s big night in NYC turned out, not surprisingly, to be less than climactic for the Shiba Inu meme crypto coin DOGE as it was seen sinking during the show and on Sunday. A wise man once said “correlation is not causation” and yet can anyone or anything be responsible for the drop in the high flying cryptocoin other than Elon and his Mom?
In stock market lingo this was what’s known as a “date certain” event. Meaning, the entire world knew that Elon would be on SNL and would, one way or another, mention DOGE, given that he has been endlessly associated with the coin in the media, and it’s a “joke” that has to be told, if only to prove to the SEC that he is really just joking. “Look guys, I am literally on a comedy show talking about this”, he seems to be saying.
“Buy the Rumor, Sell the News”
For good measure, and to avoid scrutiny by the oversight body, he, and the writers at SNL, decided to put a negative spin on both mentions of DOGE during the show. First, in an exchange with his Mom, Maye, Musk sheepishly grins and nods after she says she “hopes it won’t be DogeCoin” referring to her Mother’s day gift.
He eventually capitulates and, after saying that DogeCoin is “about as real as that dollar” he “concedes” that “it’s a hustle”.
Elon Musk, as LLoyd Ostertag on Saturday Night Live, May 8th 2021
Later, in a sketch with 100% focus on the crypto coin, the “Weekend Update” segment features Musk playing “Lloyd Ostertag” who calls himself the “DogeFather” – who is asked repeatedly “what is DogeCoin”. He eventually capitulates and, after saying that DogeCoin is “about as real as that dollar” he “concedes” that “it’s a hustle”.
While the bulk of his appearance in the segment does reconfirm and support his actual views, in a smirking and slightly deprecating way, as Ostertag”, it also underscores a deeper truth that cryptocurrencies are “as real as the dollar” (some would say more real). However, in the end, the punchline is a negative way to sweep away all of that, with a nod to Buffet, Munger and the SEC, toeing the line and insuring himself one less courtroom headache.
Was it the Day of reckoning for Dogecoin? Possible but doubtful
As of Sunday, May 9th, DOGE is hovering around .51 cents. The Muskian peak was .74 cents on May 7th. This means that, although there was a decline on the “news” that Musk would not break the SEC rules by blatantly pumping DogeCoin on live national TV, the coin is still up approximately 33% for the week, 734% for the last month and 19,446% for the last year. And, according to Elon Musk, aka Lloyd Ostertag, aka the DogeFather, it is “about as real” as that dollar in your pocket.
Sometimes, lost in all the hype and hoopla are gems that just don’t quite make it into the forefront of the mainstream. We make it our mission to keep our eyes open and be on the hunt for just those kinds of gems. Perhaps it’s an idea, or a thread of meaning, or maybe just something that is boiling under the surface about to explode like a geyser in Yellowstone Park.
Here are a few books, and the idea of a physical book itself is also one of those overlooked genius things that seems to slip past us everyday, and these are just the kind that only the eagle-eyed may have noticed previously. To make it easier they are featured front and center, below, along with descriptions, provided courtesy of the Bookshop, and some links for a variety of options to purchase.
Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe
From preeminent math personality and author of The Joy of x, a brilliant and endlessly appealing explanation of calculus–how it works and why it makes our lives immeasurably better.
Without calculus, we wouldn’t have cell phones, TV, GPS, or ultrasound. We wouldn’t have unraveled DNA or discovered Neptune or figured out how to put 5,000 songs in your pocket.
Though many of us were scared away from this essential, engrossing subject in high school and college, Steven Strogatz’s brilliantly creative, down-to-earth history shows that calculus is not about complexity; it’s about simplicity. It harnesses an unreal number–infinity–to tackle real-world problems, breaking them down into easier ones and then reassembling the answers into solutions that feel miraculous.
Antitrust enforcement is one of the most pressing issues facing America today–and Amy Klobuchar, the widely respected senior senator from Minnesota, is leading the charge. This fascinating history of the antitrust movement shows us what led to the present moment and offers achievable solutions to prevent monopolies, promote business competition, and encourage innovation.
In a world where Google reportedly controls 90 percent of the search engine market and Big Pharma’s drug price hikes impact healthcare accessibility, monopolies can hurt consumers and cause marketplace stagnation. Klobuchar–the much-admired former candidate for president of the United States–argues for swift, sweeping reform in economic, legislative, social welfare, and human rights policies, and describes plans, ideas, and legislative proposals designed to strengthen antitrust laws and antitrust enforcement.
Klobuchar writes of the historic and current fights against monopolies in America, from Standard Oil and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to the Progressive Era’s trust-busters; from the breakup of Ma Bell (formerly the world’s biggest company and largest private telephone system) to the pricing monopoly of Big Pharma and the future of the giant tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google.
She begins with the Gilded Age (1870s-1900), when builders of fortunes and rapacious robber barons such as J. P. Morgan, John Rockefeller, and Cornelius Vanderbilt were reaping vast fortunes as industrialization swept across the American landscape, with the rich getting vastly richer and the poor, poorer.
She discusses President Theodore Roosevelt, who, during the Progressive Era (1890s-1920), busted the trusts, breaking up monopolies; the Clayton Act of 1914; the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914; and the Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950, which it strengthened the Clayton Act. She explores today’s Big Pharma and its price-gouging; and tech, television, content, and agriculture communities and how a marketplace with few players, or one in which one company dominates distribution, can hurt consumer prices and stifle innovation.
The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age
From the man who coined the term net neutrality, author of The Master Switch and The Attention Merchants, comes a warning about the dangers of excessive corporate and industrial concentration for our economic and political future.
We live in an age of extreme corporate concentration, in which global industries are controlled by just a few giant firms — big banks, big pharma, and big tech, just to name a few.
But concern over what Louis Brandeis called the curse of bigness can no longer remain the province of specialist lawyers and economists, for it has spilled over into policy and politics, even threatening democracy itself. History suggests that tolerance of inequality and failing to control excessive corporate power may prompt the rise of populism, nationalism, extremist politicians, and fascist regimes.
In short, as Wu warns, we are in grave danger of repeating the signature errors of the twentieth century. In The Curse of Bigness, Columbia professor Tim Wu tells of how figures like Brandeis and Theodore Roosevelt first confronted the democratic threats posed by the great trusts of the Gilded Age–but the lessons of the Progressive Era were forgotten in the last 40 years. He calls for recovering the lost tenets of the trustbusting age as part of a broader revival of American progressive ideas as we confront the fallout of persistent and extreme economic inequality.
The classic that launched the environmental movement
Rarely does a single book alter the course of history, but Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring did exactly that.
The outrcrythat followed its publication in 1962 forced the banning of DDT and spurred the revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water.
Carson’s passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement.
This is without question one of the landmark books of the twentieth century. The introduction, by the acclaimed biographer Linda Lear, tells the story of Carson’s courageous defense of her truths in the face of a ruthless assault form the chemical industry following the publication of Silent Spring and before her untimely death.
The plot for Netflix’s newest original series, “Jupiter’s Legacy” is comprised of eight episodes is based off Mark Millar’s comic book series of the same name, originally published in 2013. The original comic book, with 5 issues printed, consisted of the plot of which spanned decades and centered around the world’s first generation of superheroes and their children, with the expectation their offspring would carry out in their parents’ legacy.
The series stars Josh Duhamel, Leslie Bibb, Ben Daniels, Elena Kampouris, Andrew Horton, Mike Wade, and Matt Lanter. Executive producers include Millar, Quitely, Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, Dan McDermott, Steven S. DeKnight, James Middleton, and Sang Kyu Kim.
“Jupiter’s Legacy” will be Netflix’s latest venture build another mega-hit original franchise – maybe even following in the footsteps of “Stranger Things” and “The Umbrella Academy”. Comic book adaptions already have built-in fan bases so the appeal is definitely there and Netflix plans to bank on it.
Millar has a long history of his comics being adapted to the big screen. Some of which include: “Kick-Ass” and “Kick-Ass 2” films, which released in 2010 and 2013, respectively, the four “Kingsman” films, the latest of which is set for premiere later this year in August. As well as the more popular titles like the “Fantastic Four”, “Captain America: Civil War” and the“Logan” films.
Netflix acquired Mark Millar’s comic-book publisher Millarworld in 2017 so there are much more Millar adaptions in store for the streaming platform for future release. Some other series that are still currently in delvelopment include “The Magic Order”, “American Jesus”, and “Super Crooks”.
Check out the trailer for “Jupiter’s Legacy” below. The show debuts May 7 on Netflix.
![Chasing Coral | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/b6fHA9R2cKI/hqdefault.jpg)
![STILLWATER - Official Trailer [HD] - In Theaters July 30](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9cq1lPPeMUY/hqdefault.jpg)
