I recently discovered Dominick Argento's (a great composer of operas, operettas, song cycles and choral works) A Water Bird Talk on Apple Music and I'm loving every minute of it. I've lost count of the number of times I've listened to this in the past week. The piece premiered in 1977 but the version I'm listening…

For me, I think it was a case of expecting something vastly different because I didn't really know anything about film or Kubrick. I was expecting Basic Instinct…and now that I think of it, a Paul Verhoeven version of Eyes Wide Shut could be interesting.

What stands out to me is Eyes Wide Shut. What a boring, overlong and completely un-erotic and un-thrilling film.

You're welcome.

Recently I picked up a copy of Ulver's 2013 live recording, Live at the Norwegian National Opera on vinyl and I've been listening to that quite a bit.

If you haven't heard it, BT's latest album, _+, has some amazing ambient pieces on it.Check out "Code of Hammurabi", "Chromatofore" and "Five Hundred and Eighty Two".

I'm a big fan of Diamanda Galas and I've been listening to her two recent albums, At Saint Thomas the Apostle Harlem and All the Way.

Malort tastes like dirt rinsed with gasoline. I remember when SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage came out, there was a Chicago bar that tweeted out a malort cocktail that was called something along the lines of Scalia's Bitter Tears.

So, Danny spends 15 years in a monastery and never learns any meditation techniques that would help calm him in an anxious situation like the plane ride?

My thought was that it was pretty typical for her show, spending 15-20 minutes on context before getting to what ever the news item is.

Frances has some issues as a film, but Lange's performance is sublime. Taymor's Titus is, in my opinion, one of the best film adaptations of Shakespeare.

I loved her as Tamora Queen of the Goths in Julie Taymor's Titus. Her best role, I think, is the title character in Frances.

That Eden Sher hasn't won a ton of awards for her work as Sue Heck baffles me. She's so f-ing great in the show.

Am I supposed to root for Kara when she has her little battles with Snapper Carr? Because Kara is a horrible journalist and Snapper should've fired her a$$ a long time ago.

When she gives birth to Connor.

Darla's death in Angel was one of my favorite scenes in the series.

My personal favorite Mieville novel is his linguistic sci fi novel, Embassytown. It's about a human colony on an alien planet that exists at the fringes of the known universe. The aliens on this planet (who are known as the Hosts) are able to communicate, but they are unlike any other sentient creature in the…

Respectfully, I happen to disagree regarding his female characters. I think they are fascinating. The character Esmenet is incredibly complex, intelligent and flawed person and is one of my favorite characters throughout the series. Her journey and development from prostitute to Empress and one of the most powerful…

The book I'm most looking forward to in 2017 is R. Scott Bakker's The Unholy Consult, the final book in his series The Aspect-Emperor. This series is a sequel to to the Prince of Nothing series, which introduced one of the most fascinating characters in fantasy fiction, Anasûrimbor Kellhus. Kellhus belongs to a sect…

A prediction I made back at the beginning of the season was that Prometheus would turn out to be Tommy. I still think that could happen.