Book Review – The Violinist’s Thumb

The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code by Sam Kean
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Though I enjoyed this as much as I liked the other Sam Kean books I’ve read, I admit I found the subject a bit more inaccessible than usual. That’s likely due in no small part to the complex, technical nature of DNA. I’m sure it’s hard to simplify without losing the essential points, and personification – analogizing by attributing emotion and intent to molecules – doesn’t help. But interesting intersections between science and history abound, which keep the author well within the realm where he excels.

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Book Review – 1,000 Artists’ Books

1,000 Artists' Books: Exploring the Book as Art by Sandra Salamony
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a fascinating collection of well-photographed pieces of art in the form of books (or book-like objects). It’s amazing to see how a medium that’s been around for centuries – even millennia – can be reinterpreted in so many different ways. I didn’t get much out of the intro, but the works themselves more than made up for that. For any artist considering working in this milieu, this gallery is a must-visit.

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Review – The Running Man (2025)

I’m not a big fan of movies that set up elaborate game rules and then either ignore or break them. If the plot isn’t going to follow its own established structure, then why bother making up rules to begin with? Even basic character motivation gets tossed to the wind for the sake of keeping the bullets flying and the explosions exploding. I thought the comic book silliness of the Schwarzenegger version was part of its charm, and that’s almost completely lacking here. And after one of Stephen King’s other Bachman books recently turned out to be better than expected, that just made the letdown here a little bit worse. So come for the action, but don’t feel like you have to stay for the story. Mildly amusing

Book Review – Mastering UI/UX Design

Mastering UI/UX Design: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Applications by Frahaan Hussain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There are some nuggets of good information here, but you’ve gotta really dig for them. Once the authors establish basic UX principles, the text becomes extremely repetitive. Even in the realm of technical writing when some repetition is encouraged, this is excessive and badly in need of a good edit. Snippets of CSS code are a poor substitute for visual examples, the lack of which is a problem in an intensely visual realm. Normally I keep reviews focused on content rather than presentation. However, given the subject matter, I feel the need to point out that the ebook formatting on Hoopla was so terrible that the text was nearly unusable. I picked this up hoping that I might be able to use it as a textbook for the UX Design course I teach. But no, the search continues.

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Book Review – Creative Journaling

Creative Journaling: A Guide to Over 100 Techniques and Ideas for Amazing Dot Grid, Junk, Mixed-Media, and Travel Pages by Renee Day
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Though I read the whole thing, I found the last 100 pages or so much more useful than the first. The beginning of the book mostly focuses on simple layouts and labeling, and a lot of it would work better in a planner or tracker than in a journal. But then the author completely switches gears and focuses on more purely artistic things that can be done with journal pages. I suppose the combination means that the book meets all needs, but my interests definitely fell way more squarely in the back half, much of which was really good.

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Review – Nuremberg

Despite the high quality of the acting and other production values, I’m not sure this accomplishes much that wasn’t already done by Judgment at Nuremberg 65 years ago. Indeed, I was a little surprised to see the first set of Nazi defendants – particularly big fish Herman Goering (Russell Crowe) – humanized to this extent. I believe I understand the filmmakers’ intent to use the “banality of evil” approach as a warning that people can be monsters even without horns and fangs (a particularly poignant lesson in the current climate). But then the good guys also seem cynical, incompetent, dishonest or otherwise morally ambiguous. Thus the movie was fun to watch but a little unsettling to reflect upon. Mildly amusing

Review – The Conjuring: Last Rites

Though I’ve seen the word “last” used deceptively in horror series titles in the past, this did have the “tired of making these things” feeling that suggests an actual final chapter. If that proves true, then the Conjuring set ends with a whimper, neither as innovative as the first, as petulant as the second or as off-the-rails crazy as the third. I should also note that early in the movie, Ed Warren is giving the standard tour of his basement museum of evil curios, warning against touching because “everything in here is either possessed, haunted or has been used in a ritual.” At which point someone in my viewing group MST3K’d it with “Half this stuff has been in Anton LaVey’s ass.” After that it was impossible to grant the production the sense of gravitas it demanded. Mildly amusing

Review – Grey Matter

One of the items on the Nazis’ long list of vile crimes was the murder of disabled and neurodiverse children. Hundreds of these kids were killed in Austria’s Spiegelgrund “clinic” under the supervision of Heinrich Gross, who added to his crimes by preserving the children’s brains and other body parts in jars. If your workplace gets a betting pool going about the year when the government finally acknowledged what happened and agreed to give the remains proper burial, be sure to put your money on 2002. That’s also the year that filmmaker Joe Berlinger made this movie about the situation and sought an interview with ancient-but-not-yet-dead Gross. Spoiler alert: I was relieved that they couldn’t track him down, as he would doubtless have simply claimed to be unable to remember what he’d done (a lie he’d told in court in the past). His victims deserved to be memorialized without granting their killer any screen time at all, so I’m sorry they even tried to find him. Beyond that this is a powerful documentary about an important subject. Worth seeing

Review – The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

This is a silly fantasy about British commandos in World War Two, but it’s a reasonably well crafted silly fantasy. The plot doesn’t make much sense, and the acting isn’t anyone’s finest hour. But the explosions are loud and the violent deaths of Nazis are frequent. What more can we ask from a 21st century action movie? Mildly amusing

Review – Tarot (2024)

The title of the movie pretty much guarantees in advance that the story isn’t going to be rich in original thinking. Indeed, there’s no need to even summarize the plot. Imagine what you’d think it would be, and that’s what it was. But production values are reasonably good, and some of the shocks are at least kinda shocking. Mildly amusing

Review – Kings of the Sun

What a weird movie. George “that guy from West Side Story” Chakiris plays a Mayan king who leads his people away from foreign invaders and then in turn invades the land of another group somewhere on the northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico. For an extra dose of what-the-hell, Yul Brynner plays the leader of the indigenous people who must now fend off the invasion. It looked like they spent a lot of money making this without giving a lot of thought to whether anyone would actually want to see it, so it’s kind of a shame that this is at best a footnote in some otherwise legendary careers. Mildly amusing