Agent Palmer

Deconstructing Sammy: Music, Money, and Madness by Matt Birkbeck could very well be one of the saddest books I have read in recent memory, which includes some books on WWII.

There are a lot of things in play in this book… “Adored by millions, Sammy Davis Jr. was considered an entertainment icon and a national treasure. But despite lifetime earnings that topped $50 million, Sammy died in 1990 near bankruptcy.

On April 1st, Lego released five sets commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Lego Star Wars theme, each set came with a new version of an old set, as well as a limited edition minifigure presented in their original guise. These minifigs (Darth Vader, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian) are pretty much the main reason people will want to buy these sets as they each come with a commemorative stand and look pretty snazzy.

Here it is, the last of the five sets released in April, and it the set I was least looking forward to. Why? Speeders are cool…

A while ago I asked a Twitter Poll question “Your favorite indie #podcast can either remain indie and more or less remain as it is or go mainstream and potentially be vastly different… You want it to Remain indie or Go mainstream?”

That the results were so close, with 51% saying they would want their favorite podcast to “Go mainstream” is extremely surprising… Or is it?

I’ve always been enamored by the Space Program. I remember putting on a football helmet, backpack covered in tin foil, recreating Armstrong’s first steps on the moon for something, though I have no idea what and that was when I was 8 or 9?

I remember watching The Right Stuff and, what is quite possibly the best miniseries on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo era of NASA Moonshot which was co-written by Deke Slayton and Al Shepherd.

There is something unique about Of a Fire on the Moon by Norman Mailer. Is it that it’s immensely rich with poetry in prose telling one of the great triumphs of modern engineering? Is it that Mailer looks for the lurking evil of the Moon or that he’s not sure if the moon shot itself was the work of the devil?

Could it be the dark humour, the deciphering of the three men who undertook the journey and those organizations and people who helped get them there? Or the curious platitudes on science versus engineering?