Monday, March 31, 2025

The Founder--Movies I've Half Watched

This is yet another movie I half-watched because I was substitute teaching, and the teacher let this movie as the lesson plan.
I showed the first 55 minutes of this movie 3 times to 3 different classes.  I never saw the second half of this movie.
I had actually been familiar with this movie before.  I'd been vaguely interested in the history of McDonalds ever since I learned in high school that the franchise started out as just one hamburger restaurant opened by the McDonald Brothers.  
After this movie came out, I watched a few Youtube reviews of it--one by History Buffs, and one by The Cynical Historian.  So I was familiar with the general premise.
My thoughts after half-watching it: the story is vaguely interesting, but not compelling interesting.  (I suspect the second half of the movie, in which Ray Kroc and the McDonald brothers come into more conflict, was probably more interesting than the first half, which is just setting up that conflict.  But I'd have to watch the entire movie before I said for certain.)
Furthermore, the movie moves at a very slow pace.  To be fair, the movie is intentionally designed to be a slow-burn, so you can't really fault it for doing what it sets out to do.  Although when I watched the first 55 minutes for the 2nd and 3rd time, I had the opportunity to observe that the editing is not very tight.  The camera lingers on the scene 2 or 3 seconds after the dialogue finishes.  The pacing of the movie could easily have been tightened up without really losing any of the story if someone had wanted to, but I guess the director didn't want to.

Between the story being only mildly interesting, and the film moving at a slow pace, it was a hard sell for the 8th grade students, and all 3 classes of 8th graders that I showed this movie to were visibly bored.  Still, it was mildly interesting.  I wouldn't mind seeing the whole thing one day.
Check out this movie on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3G3ZSx2        (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

Friday, March 28, 2025

Mecha Builders--Interesting Random Facts

Admittedly this entry is less of the random fact variety and more of the "Did you know this bizarre show exists" variety, but... did you know this really bizarre show exists?  I've found out about it recently because my kids are really into it. It takes Sesame Street characters and re-imagines them as superhero robots.  To quote Wikipedia
The series focuses on "mecha" versions of three legacy characters: Mecha Abby CadabbyMecha Elmo, and Mecha Cookie Monster, all reimagined as mechanical beings with the power to enlarge to giant size in addition to unique built-in tools and gadgets. The trio usually solve a problem using a three-step formula: plan, test, and solve. Later episodes would add a fourth main cast member in the form of Elmo's pet dog Tango
 

Check out this show on Amazon: https://amzn.to/42urvIu         (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

I've seen this movie once before (in its entirety) back when I was young, so this is actually a rewatch.  (Or rather a half-rewatch).
I saw this movie when I was around 10 years old, on the Disney channel.  (Back in the 1980s, the Disney Channel reran a lot of old Disney movies.)  I remember I really wanted to like it, because the commercials for it (which ran on the Disney channel) made it look really fun--a fantasy story about Leprechauns and Ireland--but the actual movie itself was very slow paced and hard to sit through.

Recently, however, my children have become obsessed with leprechauns after learning about them during their first Saint Patrick's Day here in the U.S.  And so I was trying to think what children's movies contain leprechauns, and this is the only one I could think of.
My kids lasted only 30 minutes before they got bored.  Which was about what I expected, quite frankly.
Although I don't remember the plot of the movie in detail, the feel of the movie (or at least the first 30 minute of it) was pretty much as I remembered it.  It's got great scenery, a good looking cast, great acting, and you really want to like this movie, but... the plot just moves too slowly to be interesting.
The movie is also notable for starring Sean Connery before he became famous for being James Bond.
Check out this movie on Amazon: https://amzn.to/42ui7ob        (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

Thursday, March 27, 2025

Man's Fate by Andre Malraux translated by Haakon M. Chevalier: Book Review


Started: March 11, 2025

This is a reread.  I originally read it back in college, as I mentioned in previous blog posts: hereherehere and here. However, since this is my first time reviewing this book on this blog, according to my new rules, it gets a video only review.



Links to things mentioned: 

Quotation from that essay: “Published in 1933, [Man’s Fate] did for fiction what Harold Isaacs’s “Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution” did for scholarship.  It pointed up the increasing weight of Asia in world affairs; it described epic moments of suffering and upheaval, in Shanghai especially (it was nearly filmed by Sergei Eisenstein); and it demonstrated huge respect for Communism and Communists while simultaneously evoking the tragedy of a revolution betrayed by Moscow.  Somewhat lushly Orientalist in its manner, the novel was ridiculed for its affection by Vladimir Nabokov and hailed as prescient by Arthur Koestler."

Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century (this book is number 5): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde%27s_100_Books_of_the_Century




Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman

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Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Starting: Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire by Eckart Frahm

Check out this book on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/3Y4ggUq               (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

Monday, March 24, 2025

The Crimson Shadow Book Tag



1. What is the first manga , comic or graphic novel you ever read? One or all three if you like. If not, what was the first movie you saw that was based on a comic?

2. Which book or series have you reread the most ?

3. The shadow or the phantom: Which is the better character ?
And have you read any stories containing these characters? 

4. H.G Wells or Rex Stout? Who in your opinion is the better writer and why ?

4. Biography or collection of essays: Which would you rather read?

6. Tag some people

 @WilliamsLibrary  
 @ReadingIDEAS.-uz9xk  
 @mindysbookjourney  
 @JzyShzy  
 @booksimnotreading  
 @danecobain  
 @jimsbooksreadingandstuff  

Links to my reviews of some of the stuff mentioned in this video:


Saturday, March 22, 2025

Started: The New Teen Titans Volume Six by Marv Wolfman and George Perez

Check out this book on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4kPWzJT                     (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

The Silver Age Teen Titans Archives: Volume 1 by Bob Haney, Nick Cardy and Bruno Premiani: Review


Started: March 06, 2025

(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.)




Related Playlists:





Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman

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Thursday, March 20, 2025

Starting: Stupid, Stupid Rat-Tails: The Adventures of Big Johnson Bone, Frontier Hero by Tom Sniegoski, Jeff Smith, Stan Sakai

Check out this book on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4kHQfUO               (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

I have once again gotten to a point where I can no longer remember all the vocabulary in the lessons I have learned on the Vietnamese Duolingo.  I've been increasingly frustrated the past few weeks, and I think the best thing to do is, once again, just delete my progress and start from the beginning.
(For the record, I had made it all the way up to Section 2 Unit 32: Describe people around you).
I think it's becoming increasingly obvious Duolingo is not a good way to learn Vietnamese, at least not for me.  It might be a good way to practice Vietnamese for people who have already learned it, but it's not good for learning the language from scratch.  Which is unfortunately what I've been trying to do for the past 9 years.
At some point in the future, I may write a longer post with my thoughts on language learning.  But I don't have time to do that at the moment.  
So, for the moment, I'll just note that I'm restarting my progress again.
As always, you can follow me on Duolingo here: https://www.duolingo.com/profile/JoelSwagman

Monday, March 17, 2025

The Snob-O-Metre Tag


The original tag was created by ‪Isaiah
‪@ThatReadingGuy28‬

I was tagged by Jay Shay:
 @JzyShzy  

1. What is your definition of book snobbery? 

2. Is there a genre or type of book you would never consider reading? (Such as, would you ever read a romance? Or if you regularly read romance, would you ever try a science fiction novel?) 

3. Does erotica count as literature? 

4. Is it better to read classic books than popular bestsellers? 

5. Have you ever bragged about reading a classic in order to sound smart? 

6. Do audiobooks count as reading? What about comic books or graphic novels? 

7. Have you ever looked down at someone for reading a popular fluff book (a book with little substance to it; for example, a self-help book or celebrity memoir)? 

8. Have you ever been the recipient of someone else’s snobbery? 

9. Would you ever be friends with a snob? (Maybe you already are?) 

10. Are people who don’t read less sophisticated than people who do? 

11. Measure yourself: based on your answers to the previous ten questions, would you qualify as a book snob? 

12. Tag some people!
 @WilliamsLibrary  
 @ReadingIDEAS.-uz9xk  
 @mindysbookjourney  
 @Bucky749  
 @booksimnotreading  
 @danecobain  
 @jimsbooksreadingandstuff  

Links to stuff mentioned:


Sunday, March 16, 2025

This Week in Booktube: March 16, 2025
(These are the Booktube videos I watched this week. As always, I encourage you also to check out each of the videos I've linked to down below.  Support Booktube.  And let me know what you've watched this past week.)

Google document: docspub 

Saturday, March 15, 2025



"...the bank is going to take your house." 
"Well, good luck finding it because I'm gonna take the numbers off tonight."
"Well we'll look for the house with no numbers." 
"Then I'll take off the numbers on my neighbor's house." 
"So then we'll look for the house next to the house with no numbers."

Another reminder of just how great The Simpsons were in their prime.
I took the kids to the park today.  The air was grey, and it reminded me of the way the air looks on a polluted air day back in Saigon.  But I thought to myself: "This can't be air pollution.  Not here in West Michigan."

But then, I got home and Googled it, and found that: West Michigan’s air quality worst in the US Saturday.
As of 3 p.m., Grand Rapids reported the worst air quality in the United States, ranking over other Midwestern cities also dealing with dust. The Air Quality Index in Grand Rapids was 397, which is enough to be hazardous.
397!  Back in Saigon, I don't let the kids out of the house if the AQI is over 100.  And here I had them playing outside when the Air Quality Index was 397!
I should have known something was wrong with the air by the way it looked.  I just never thought I would have to deal with polluted air here in West Michigan.  (One of the main reasons we moved back to the United States was because we wanted to escape the bad air quality that is in Vietnam.)
If you read the article, you can see that the bad air quality is supposedly caused by dust, and not factory pollution or anything.  Still, I don't remember bad air quality days in Michigan when I was a kid.  Is this the result of climate change?

Friday, March 14, 2025

Buddy Holly was only 22 when he died--Interesting Random Facts

Everybody knows the story of Buddy Holly and The Day the Music Died, but I was reading about it again just now, and I realized that Buddy Holly was only 22 when he died.  I don't think I had realized he was that young.  I mean, Buddy Holly is so frequently cited as an influence on other musicians (see here), that I just assumed he had reached at least his mid-twenties or late twenties to have had such an influence.  
So if he was only 22 when he died, that means his entire career was when he was under 22.  According to Wikipedia, Buddy Holly was only 18 when he started recording.  And he was only 21 in this video clip


...and, doing some more reading, it looks like Ritchie Valens, who infamously died in the same crash, was even younger at 17.  


...but I think there might have been something with singers in the 1950s just being really young just in general.  For example, did you know that the girl who did Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree was 13 when she recorded that song?

Starting: Mometrix Academy Youtube Videos for MTTC English as a Second Language (126)

I'm currently reading Mometrix Test Preparation's MTTC English as a Second Language (126) Secrets Study Guide.  The book includes urls for several recommended videos that supplement the book.
It turns out that all of these are Youtube videos, so as I work through these videos, I'm going to put them all in a playlist.  My plan is to actively watch each video once (i.e. give it my full attention while I watch it), and then also use the playlist to passively review the videos by having them on in the background for the next few weeks as I prepare for the MTTC test.  Once I finish using this playlist, I will review it under my Podcasts, Youtube Series, Radio Shows, Etc project.  
While I'm focusing on this, progress on my other listening projects (the Revolutions Podcast and watching Booktube) may slow down.

The playlist is HERE


Update: Now that I've watched each video at least once, the playlist is complete, and I'm just going to keep replaying it.  I'm going to keep track of where I leave off down below:
April 5, 2025--Fluency

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Candide by Voltaire: Book Review

No translator is given for this edition, unfortunately.  The cover page simply says, "This Dover edition, first published in 1991, is an unabridged republication of an anonymous English version of Candide..."


Started: March 07, 2025

This is a reread.  I originally read it when it was required reading for one of my literature classes in college--as I've mentioned before herehere and here. However, since this is my first time reviewing this book on this blog, according to my new rules, it gets a video only review.




Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman

Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/JoelSwagman

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Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Started: Man's Fate by Andre Malraux  (This is a reread.  I read this book before in college, as I mentioned in previous blog posts: here, here, here and here).


Check this book out on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4iGO5Tt                 (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

Monday, March 10, 2025


I've been reading The Silver Age Teen Titans Archives: Volume 1, which contains reprinted comics from the 1960s.  In the first reprinted issue, from 1964, the villain is Brom Stikk, and the plot revolves around the fact that passenger pigeons were once so common in America, and are now completely gone.

Image from: https://marswillsendnomore.wordpress.com/2013/07/27/robin-kid-flash-and-aqualad/braveandthebold054_13-teentitans9/
(see here and here for more).

I was curious, so I Googled it, and found the Wikipedia article:

The passenger pigeon or wild pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) is an extinct species of pigeon that was endemic to North America.

It mainly inhabited the deciduous forests of eastern North America and was also recorded elsewhere, but bred primarily around the Great Lakes. The pigeon migrated in enormous flocks, constantly searching for food, shelter, and breeding grounds, and was once the most abundant bird in North America, numbering around 3 billion, and possibly up to 5 billion.

Passenger pigeons were hunted by Native Americans, but hunting intensified after the arrival of Europeans, particularly in the 19th century. Pigeon meat was commercialized as cheap food, resulting in hunting on a massive scale for many decades. There were several other factors contributing to the decline and subsequent extinction of the species, including shrinking of the large breeding populations necessary for preservation of the species and widespread deforestation, which destroyed its habitat. A slow decline between about 1800 and 1870 was followed by a rapid decline between 1870 and 1890. In 1900, the last confirmed wild bird was shot in southern Ohio.[2][4] The last captive birds were divided in three groups around the turn of the 20th century, some of which were photographed alive. Martha, thought to be the last passenger pigeon, died on September 1, 1914, at the Cincinnati Zoo. The eradication of the species is a notable example of anthropogenic extinction.
I found this interesting because:
1) I had never heard of passenger pigeons before, but this 1964 children's comic treats it like their extinction was common knowledge.  Is this a forgotten piece of history?  Did more people know about passenger pigeons in the 1960s, and then it just faded out of public memory?
(Of course it could be just me, but, I ran this by the my mother, sister and brother-in-law, and they had never heard of the passenger pigeon before either.  What about you, dear reader?)

2) It's interesting the huge scale of the reverse, huh?  This went from being the must abundant bird in North America to being extinct. That's a pretty remarkable change.

There's tons more interesting material on the Wikipedia page: everything from their vocalizations, to their relationship with humans to (perhaps most interestingly) the potential resurrection of the species.  Check out the Wikipedia page if you have time.

Sunday, March 09, 2025

Psalm 44


From my reread of The Bible.
Psalms admittedly isn't my favorite book of The Bible.  I like narratives, and Psalms is more poetics.  But one of the interesting things about reading Psalms is seeing how the theology seems to differ from psalm to psalm.  One psalm will assert that God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked, the next psalm will lament that God allows the wicked to prosper while the righteous suffer.
I read Psalm 44 today, and I thought it was interesting, because Psalm 44 is asserting that God allowed Israel( *) to suffer at the hands of its foreign adversaries despite the fact that Israel had been faithful to God.
This is in contrast, of course, to the narrative of the Deuteronomistic Historian (W), but one thing to keep in mind is that the historical narrative in the Bible may be reinterpreting events to fit its theological conclusions.  The theological conclusion that was reached in the time of the exile was: God allowed us to be conquered because we were unfaithful to him.
But in the years leading up to the exile, it could have been that the Israelites believed that they were still being faithful to God, and couldn't understand why God was allowing this to happen.

(*) I'm using the word "Israel" to refer to both Israel and Judah here.

Anyway, below is Psalm 44.  I've been reading The Jerusalem Bible, but because the NIV is easier to find online, I'm copying and pasting from the NIV:

Psalm 44
For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. A maskil.
1 We have heard it with our ears, O God;
    our ancestors have told us
what you did in their days,
    in days long ago.
2 With your hand you drove out the nations
    and planted our ancestors;
you crushed the peoples
    and made our ancestors flourish.
3 It was not by their sword that they won the land,
    nor did their arm bring them victory;
it was your right hand, your arm,
    and the light of your face, for you loved them.

4 You are my King and my God,
    who decrees victories for Jacob.
5 Through you we push back our enemies;
    through your name we trample our foes.
6 I put no trust in my bow,
    my sword does not bring me victory;
7 but you give us victory over our enemies,
    you put our adversaries to shame.
8 In God we make our boast all day long,
    and we will praise your name forever.

9 But now you have rejected and humbled us;
    you no longer go out with our armies.
10 You made us retreat before the enemy,
    and our adversaries have plundered us.
11 You gave us up to be devoured like sheep
    and have scattered us among the nations.
12 You sold your people for a pittance,
    gaining nothing from their sale.

13 You have made us a reproach to our neighbors,
    the scorn and derision of those around us.
14 You have made us a byword among the nations;
    the peoples shake their heads at us.
15 I live in disgrace all day long,
    and my face is covered with shame
16 at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me,
    because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge.

17 All this came upon us,
    though we had not forgotten you;
    we had not been false to your covenant.
18 Our hearts had not turned back;
    our feet had not strayed from your path.
19 But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals;
    you covered us over with deep darkness.

20 If we had forgotten the name of our God
    or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
21 would not God have discovered it,
    since he knows the secrets of the heart?
22 Yet for your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

23 Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep?
    Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.
24 Why do you hide your face
    and forget our misery and oppression?

25 We are brought down to the dust;
    our bodies cling to the ground.
26 Rise up and help us;
    rescue us because of your unfailing love.

The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: Book Review


Started: March 4, 2025

This is a reread.  As I mentioned in the video, I originally read The Jungle Books (which combined The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book into one volume) back in 6th grade.  However, since this is my first time reviewing this book on this blog, according to my new rules, it gets a video only review.





Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman

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Friday, March 07, 2025

Started: Candide by Voltaire  (This is a reread.  I originally read it when it was required reading for one of my literature classes in college--as I've mentioned before here, here and here).


Check out this book on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/3DlyrOu             (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

Thursday, March 06, 2025

Starting: The Silver Age Teen Titans Archives: Volume 1

Check out this book on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4hc4YUU             (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann: Book Review

Started: March 01, 2025

(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.)





Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman

Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/JoelSwagman

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Tuesday, March 04, 2025

Starting: The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling  (This is a reread of sorts.  I read The Jungle Books back in middle school, which combined the stories from The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book, as I discussed in this post.)


Check this book out on Amazon here:  https://amzn.to/3D6jujh        (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)

Sunday, March 02, 2025

This Week in Booktube: March 2, 2025
(These are the Booktube videos I watched this week. As always, I encourage you also to check out each of the videos I've linked to down below.  Support Booktube.  And let me know what you've watched this past week.)

Google document: docspub 

Tell Tale Books: Feb 2025 review and the future

P. English Literature: Author Interview with Marieke Lexmond

Steve Donoghue: Video Response: Stop Reading Books You Hate!

baldbookgeek: 11 Years of Trying to Self-Publish – A Tragicomedy

Reading IDEAS: Agatha Christie Book Haul Beautiful 1950's Cover What's your favourite?

John A. Douglas: February Book Haul

Book Time With Elvis: Time to Bow Out - Channel Update

Bookish: How a Book is Destroying America!: Rand, Reagan, the 80s, Trump, and Elon Musk

Reading This Life: A Year Older, A Stack Taller: My 53rd Birthday Book Haul

BDUB: WOODSTOCK NATION: A TALK-ROCK ALBUM by Abbie Hoffman (Dedicated to Lenny Bruce) MC Mistabil Weldon

Bucky749: Zuru mini brands books : the Quest for Goosebumps.

Mindy’s Book Journey: The Third Rule of Time Travel Book Review

Steve Donoghue: Video Response: How to Deal with a Reading Slump!

CPL Radio: Books of the Week - February 24th, 2025

William's Library: Alternate History And Dystopia Book Collection Part 5

Dane Cobain: February 2025 BookTube Shoutouts [10 CHANNELS]

Steve Donoghue: A Chat with Sam! Answering Hannah's questions!

Michael K. Vaughan: Roger and I Battle Pennywise

jim’s books reading & stuff: No Video Today

Books I’m Not Reading: Book Review: Home by Marilynne Robinson (no spoilers)