Movie Review: Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

Pit and the Pendulum (1961) directed by Roger Corman

Vincent Price stars in this classic story by Edgar Allan Poe adapted for the screen by B-movie horror icon Roger Corman. Price is Nicholas Medina, a Spaniard living in the 1500s. His home is a castle by the seaside, though it is the creepy sort of shoreline. He's visited by his brother-in-law Francis Barnard (John Kerr) who wants to find out about the death of his sister. She married Nicholas many years ago and died a few months ago. Nicholas didn't give much detail on the death in his letter to Francis, hence the visit. Nicholas is borderline crazy with good reason. His dad was part of the legendary Spanish Inquisition and the torture chamber is still in the basement of the castle. The father conducted a lot of business at home, including the torture of his wife and brother (i.e. Nicholas's mom and uncle) because they had been having an affair. Young Nicholas witnessed the torture and is naturally super-sensitive. With Francis's arrival and his suspicion, Nicholas starts to hear his dead wife calling and even her playing the harpsichord. The problem is other people in the castle can hear her too. Something more nefarious is going on.

The movie is an interesting blend of Poe themes. There's the fear of being buried alive, the doomed house, the lost wife/lover who still haunts the living, etc. They make a nice, natural, cohesive, and disturbing whole. The movie has good atmosphere and some chilling moments. The actors are all good with Price doing what he came to be known best for (he plays the dad in flashbacks). Overall, it's a satisfying old-school horror film.

Recommended.

Book Review: My Hero Academia Vol. 8 by Kohei Horikoshi

My Hero Academia Volume 8 by Kohei Horikoshi

The freshmen students at U.A. continue their final exams. Since this is a manga (i.e., a Japanese graphic novel), naturally the focus is on the practical side of the exam. Students are paired up and have to handcuff or escape from a teacher, who acts as a villain in the practical test. The two students need to work together, coming up with a plan to use their skills in some complementary way. Who will pass the exam, thus getting to go to Hero Summer Camp, and who will fail, thus winding up in Hero Summer School? The story gets as far as the start of summer camp, with a slight detour into the actual villains' plans to take down the legendary hero All Might.

This is another fun issue. The story is moving at a good pace and the blend of comedy and action works quite well.

Recommended.

Book Review: The Geek Dad Book for Aspiring Mad Scientists by Ken Denmead

The Geek Dad Book for Aspiring Mad Scientists by Ken Denmead

This book is a collection of scientific experiments and demonstrations that can be done at home with the family. The experiments range in complexity, difficulty, and duration. There's classic stuff like building a potato cannon and more mundane tasks like identifying all the flora and fauna in your back yard. Some projects are clearly safer than others. Flames and explosions make recurring appearances. But that's the sort of science that a mad scientist would do, right?

The book has an appendix listing the cost, difficulty, and time needed for each experiment. The individual experiments include a list of items needed and step-by-step instructions along with illustrations. The editing is unfortunately a little choppy, with occasional references to wrong page numbers and one or two experiments that aren't as clearly detailed as they need to be. The illustrations are more fun than technical. Every now and then I thought, "How is this supposed to go together again?" But overall, it's fun to read and we will be trying out some experiments, like extracting our own DNA and copper-plating some iron nails or steel paperclips. Those experiment will mostly likely wind up on the blog.

Slightly recommended.

Travel Bug Adventures

We picked up the Travel Bug Hard Drive Travel’s out of Going West TB Hotel on our recent driving vacation to Minnesota. The geocache is located behind a truck stop in Indiana. The find was a little tricky--we had to go through a fence to what seemed like an abandoned road. You know, the sort of place where you would run into a zombie horde. All was quiet.

Hard Drive Travel's (sic)

TB Hotel location

When we discovered the bug’s destination, we thought we had to help out. This particular travel bug is trying to get to North Dakota, which happened to be part of our destination, visiting relatives and some family graves. Geocaching took us to a different cemetery in Geneso, North Dakota. We dropped the travel bug in Iron Wall - NDSQ and retrieved it from there because we were worried it might be a while before it moved on.

The cemetery gate with silos behind

Me and the bug

The cemetery

Our route back home happened to swing through the top of South Dakota. We couldn’t resist the urge to get another cache and another state. We found a cache, MGR Inspector Visits Claire City!, in Claire City, South Dakota. The small town’s park had the hiding spot. We took some pictures there after making the find. We again dropped and retrieved the travel bug so it could get the extra state in too!

Location of the South Dakota cache

The bug at same

On the way home, we stopped by a cache in Illinois (because we haven't cached in Illinois yet). The cache wasn't big enough to drop the bug in, so we gave it another visit at 11-11-11 #9.

The cache is somewhere in the picture

We got home and tried to drop the travel bug at All Hail the Queen but the cache was too small. We had some shopping to do anyway, so it wasn't a wasted trip.

The cache is somewhere around here, the back parking lot of the store

We went to a different parking lot where the cache Cats and Dogs and Fish Oh My! is located in pretty much the same hiding spot. The container was the same size, so the travel bug would not fit!

Even folding the plastic bag didn't help!

Then we couldn't even find Southbound Roach Motel, a cache specifically designed for travel bugs going south on Interstate 95. The cache location was behind some very tall grass (like four feet tall!). Hopefully the rest stop people will get their weed wackers out and take care of some business.

After that, we found O Christmas Tree! which claimed to be a regular-size cache. The container was big enough, but the space inside was not. It was a very fun container, so we'll give them a pass this time.

View from our parking spot

We finally found a cache big enough to fit the bug inside. We went to the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum which had the Horse high, bull strong and hog tight geocache. The title refers to Osage Orange, a bush that is often planted close together to make a fence. You know, one that is too high for a horse to jump, too solid for a bull to ram through, and too tight for a hog to slip through. At least the cache was accessible and now has a traveler ready to move on.

Somewhere in there

The park and museum are well worth visiting, even apart from the cool geocache in the front!

Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum

The Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum is situated on the land that was the farm of Benjamin Banneker. He was a gentleman farmer from the 1700s. His grandparents came to America and the family worked their way to freedom from indentured servitude. His grandmother worked on a tobacco farm for seven years and used the skills she acquired to make her own farm. She had children and then her son Robert had Benjamin. Benjamin helped out on the farm but was very interested in learning. He read as much as he could and at one point took apart a pocket watch and put it back together. Using that experience, he made a larger wooden clock with the gears and other parts to scale. It ran accurately for fifty years! He worked the family farm but was more interested in astronomy and mathematics. He was hired in his sixties to help survey the new national capital for the United States. Earlier, he had written an almanac that was a best seller. He sent it to Thomas Jefferson, who was also a gentleman farmer with scientific interests. Jefferson was fascinated, especially because Benjamin Banneker was a free black man. Banneker died in 1806 at the farm just outside Baltimore, Maryland.

The park has a nice museum along with plenty of wooded trails, period-style gardens, and a recreated log cabin much like Banneker's original cabin, which burned down after his death.

Museum from the front

We arrived early, i.e. before the museum opened, intending to find a geocache on the property. One is hidden right by the gate. Thankfully it was a large enough cache that we could put in a travel bug we had picked up in Indiana (more on that in the next blog post).

Geocache location

The cache discovery went quicker than expected so we explored the outdoor grounds to use up time before the museum opened. One garden is set up for pollinators. We saw tons of butterflies enjoying the flowers' sweet nectar. The butterflies were adapt at avoiding photography, sadly.

Pollinator garden

A shady sun dial, maybe not as useful as it could be

Nearby was a play area with a faux boat that my children pretended to sail. That took up a lot of time since we traveled to Ireland and back.

All aboard!

A frame for a teepee stood nearby.

Ready for a covering

Another nearby structure was inexplicable to us. Maybe it was the start of a garden or some other such project.

Posts with holes, hmmm....

We found a trail that let us explore the solar system. Since Banneker was an astronomer, it made sense. The youngest loved reading facts about different planets and objects in our neck of outer space.

Learning about the sun

We found a turtle who was just as shy as the butterflies about photography, but not nearly swift enough to escape a shot.

On the path to privacy

Another part of the path we avoided all together. I recognized the boxes below as bee hives and we saw a sign that confirmed the fact.

Buzz off, humans!

We mean it!

The trail also had a insect hotel which was more physically approachable but none of us made a close examination.

Thank goodness for zoom lenses

The Stone House is a three-story structure built in the 1850s by the Hynes family. Joshua Hynes was a Baltimore County sheriff who also did some farming. The house passed to two other families in subsequent years. It was eventually bought by Baltimore County. The county founded the Banneker park and named the house "Molly Bannaky House" after Benjamin's grandmother.

The Stone House, aka the Molly Bannaky House

By this time in our adventure, the museum was open so we went back and began a tour. We watched a video about Banneker that was very informative. Then we visited a room with some local wildlife on display.

Diamondback terrapin

Eastern corn snake

Pick up sticks players

The museum's exhibit on Banneker's life includes a family tree, several panels discussing his life and work, and information on his impact on America.

Family tree

Table given by Thomas Jefferson

One display shows a replica of the clock that he reverse-engineered. At the bottom is a pocket watch that is mostly taken apart!

Replica of the clock

The docent offered to take us outside to see a log cabin that was brought to the property when they converted it to a museum. The cabin is very similar to Banneker's original. He died a bachelor, so he didn't need much.

Cabin

Herb garden

The cabin has a lot of items related to Banneker's life. In one corner tobacco is hanging to dry. Normally, the drying would happen in an outbuilding, not in the house.

Tobacco

The house has entertainment items, including musical instruments, games, and a pipe.

What to do at night without TV

The house only has one room downstairs, so the fireplace was readily available. It was used for cooking as well as heating. Some experts on colonial cooking come every few months to do demonstrations. We'll have to keep an eye out for the next presentation!

Fireplace

Herbs and jars

The floor has a door to the root cellar where root vegetables, among other items, were stored.

Door

Inside the door

My children asked lots of questions and answered questions too, which was very satisfying for me.

Back outside, we saw an oven in the distance. Back in the day, they used clay ovens to bake breads, pies, and other items (but who needs baked goods beyond bread and pie?). We opened the door only to find a spider living inside. We quickly closed it again.

Visiting the oven

The site is well worth the trip. They have educational programs throughout the year and another geocache further back in the trails, so we may come again.

Book Review: The Quantum Age by J. Lemire et al.

The Quantum Age written by Jeff Lemire, art by Wilfredo Torres, colors by Dave Stewart, and letters by Nate Piekos

One hundred or so years after the events of the Black Hammer main series, the Earth is part of a galactic alliance and has a new team of heroes, The Quantum League. They were inspired by Black Hammer's team and even include a distant descendant of Black Hammer, who gets herself on the team through plucky insistence. The team is very successful until Martians attack the Earth in a homicidal rampage that forces the team to make a hard decision. The team breaks up after that. Twenty-five years later, the world has slipped into a dictatorship. A new hero wants to get the Quantum League back together to make things right. But is it a fight that they can even win?

The book has some intriguing ideas but the story meanders a bit and isn't as satisfying. The ending is original but disappointing, mostly because their scheme to achieve victory is unconvincing and impractical. The writing uses the reluctant/disillusioned superhero trope for too many characters (basically, all of them). The future isn't that bad, is it?

Slightly recommended--it's an interesting story that falters in the execution.

Movie Review: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman

In an alternate reality (viewers know because Koka-Soda has taken the place of Coca-Cola), Miles Morales is bitten by a radioactive spider and gets the same powers that Peter Parker has. This reality already has a Peter Parker who has been saving New York for years and years. Miles recognizes the Spider powers and goes back to investigate where the spider was. His discovery is interrupted as Spider-Man and Green Goblin crash through a wall and fight over a gigantic machine in the next room. Spidey is trying to shut the machine down but fails, i.e. he is killed in the battle. He passes on the mission to Miles, who reluctantly joined in the battle. The machine is an inter-dimensional transporter that got a whiff of Peter and pulls in Spider-Beings from other dimensions, including another Spider-Man, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man Noir, Peni Parker with her SPDR robot, and Peter Porker, the spectacular Spider-Ham (yes, he is a literal pig, though he can talk). The group bands together to get back to their own dimensions and stop the machine from wreaking havoc on this world. Miles is almost ready to help out, if he can get some mentoring from all these good Spider-folk.

The visual style of the film is interesting. They pay homage to the old four-color print style of earlier comics (1950s to 1980s) with spotty colors and the occasional dialogue box showing the words Miles is thinking or speaking. The style isn't limited to classic comic-book flavor--anime visuals are used for Peni Parker (who is an orphaned Asian child adopted by Aunt May and Uncle Ben in the 31st century) and Looney Tunes styling for Spider-Ham, who is very cartoonish in the best possible way. The different elements are not jarring, they blend quite well and seem like the natural consequence of different realities bleeding into each other. The movie is enjoyable just to watch.

The plot is far-fetched and more of an excuse to bring all the characters from different comics together. Each Spider-Person has their own personality and interesting twists in their back stories. The focus is on Miles (it's his universe, after all) and his origin story, which echoes the Peter Parker origin in a fresh way. The Miles Morales universe is not the classical Spider-Man universe, so a few of the characters, including the villains, have some nice surprise changes. The main villain, Kingpin, has an interesting motivation for using the inter-dimensional portal, giving him a lot more depth than other villains in other movies. The plot comes together quite well with its mixture of humor and drama and well-developed characters.

Usually a film that is dripping in visual style lacks in story and character, making it unsatisfying to me. Happily, this movie gets the balance right and turns out to be a top-tier Spider-Man film and a great film in general.

Highly recommended.

Book Review: The Right to Be Wrong by Kevin Seamus Hasson

The Right to Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War Over Religion in America by Kevin Seamus Hasson

Every December it happens. People complain about how their holy day is being ignored or trivialized. Others complain about Menorahs or Nativity sets being set up on public property. Outrage over too much or not enough or not the right religion turns into clickbait headlines on the internet, in print media, and on television. People squabble over the right to freedom of expression and freedom from expression of religion.

According to author Kevin Hasson, the problem lies between two extremes, two groups he calls Pilgrims and Park Rangers. Pilgrims have the truth, and they think that only that truth should be (and ought to be) displayed in public. The original Pilgrims came to Plymouth Colony fleeing religious persecution in England. Ironically, they began persecuting the non-Pilgrims who came on the trip and arrived later in what is now Massachusetts. After celebrating the first Thanksgiving with a day off to feast and enjoy themselves, the Pilgrims forbade any celebration of Christmas, which they knew was a Catholic innovation and not part of their pure Christian faith. Anyone who wanted to enjoy themselves in public places had to take it into their homes and not disturb the good, hardworking Pilgrims. Park Rangers deny that there is a definitive religious truth and that therefore there should be no public displays favoring any religion. Hasson tells the bizarre true story of a parking barrier set up in the wrong spot of a public park. At first, the Park Rangers wanted it removed. Then a local garden club said the barrier made a nice aesthetic balance, so it stayed. Then some New Agers saw it as a sacred representation of balance, and that was enough for the Park Rangers to get it moved out of public sight. The state can't sponsor a religious object on public property, can it? "You can celebrate in the privacy of your own home" is the conclusion of the Park Rangers, which is almost the same as the Pilgrims sending other Christians indoors on Christmas. Resolving these two extreme viewpoints is tricky but necessary.

The culture war over religion has played out again and again in America's history. Hasson uses historical events from the 1700s to modern day to bring up issues and insights. He advocates for a middle ground, where everyone needs to allow the religious views and expressions of others within reasonable limits. He appeals to the truth that we are all humans who search for the truth and have the conscientious obligation to follow that truth. Even if that truth is mistaken. Living by that understanding requires both vigilance and flexibility, because the issue will come up again and again in both new and old ways. If our history teaches us anything, we should learn the futility of being a Pilgrim or a Park Ranger. Also, the inhumanity of being a Pilgrim or a Park Ranger.

Highly recommended.

The Charmery Ice Cream Factory, Baltimore

The Charmery Ice Cream Factory is a great hidden secret in Baltimore. I found out about it from a blog post on National Ice Cream Day. We are fans both of touring factories and ice cream, so it was natural for us to go and check it out. Of course, I read the blog after Free Ice Cream Day happened (Sunday, July 21, in 2019). The holiday was declared by President Ronald Reagan back in 1984. Lots of ice cream places celebrate with free ice cream or other sweet deals. We missed out on the deals but were able to check out a new, fun place.

The factory is located at the Union Collective, a large building near the Baltimore Zoo. Union Craft Brewing was looking to expand into a larger facility. They found this building but it was twice the size they needed. In the spirit of communal entrepreneurship, the brewery invited other Baltimore businesses looking to expand into larger locations to join them. The Charmery was run out of a shop that is basically the bottom floor of a row house, with ice cream production in the back room and sales in the front room. Wanting to expand their operations, they took part of the building as their ice cream factory, freeing up room in the shop and enabling them to open a second shop just north of Baltimore.

The factory's location

The factory has plenty of fun stuff inside, including a now-defunct ice cream delivery truck that kids can play on.

My daughter takes a turn driving

They also have an ice-cream cone rider that only fit our prescholar. The quarter slot was broken on it, so it ran whenever someone pushed the button. Free rides were very popular.

Getting ready to launch

Steering

The factory tour was not very long. They have a work floor where they keep ingredients and a walk-in storage freezer.

Factory tour entrance

Ingredients storage

Entrance to the freezer

We did a quick walk through the freezer because the temperature is about zero degrees Fahrenheit. After seeing the freezer, they showed us the ice cream-making machines. Since it was a Saturday, things were quiet. We saw where the ingredients go in and get mixed. A spout fills large containers that are taken to a quick-freeze freezer (either -29 or -35 degrees) before going to the walk-through freezer. Faster freezing means fewer ice particles can form in the ice cream, saving their creations from freezer burn.

Industrial ice cream machine

They make about 300 gallons of ice cream in a day. The company prides itself on local flavors (like an Old Bay Caramel) and the occasional odd flavors (like Cheese and Crackers). We got a preview of a new mango flavor that was very delicious. It wasn't available for purchase when we visited (late July 2019) but is probably available in August 2019 for a while.

Mango-based ice cream!

The tour guide gave us fridge magnets to commemorate our trip to the freezer.

Great souvenir

For my post-tour treat, I sampled the salty caramel and the baklava. I was too chicken to try the cheese and crackers ice cream. For my waffle cone, I had the baklava, which was delightful.

They don't sell their flavors in grocery stores, though some restaurants buy them for their dessert menu. We'll just have to go back some time to try some more.