Hobbies, Tangents, & Links

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Authors & Poets Because I read about more than just Ships, Lewis Carroll, and the Middle East. (Okay, so they're in here too.)

Alfred Noyes - a great poet. Author of Forty Singing Seamen, The Lord of Misrule, Tales of the Mermaid Tavern, The Highwayman...

Tangents, by Grodzins - Prof. Dean Grodzins has won awards for both his history writing and his cartooning. Sadly, he doesn't have a website displaying his work. C'mon Dean, scan some of that genius!
Don Marquis - the creator of Archy & Mehitabel, and of so much more
Robert Service - the author of McPherson held the Floor
Read anything written by: Lewis Carroll, Richard Halliburton, John McPhee, Farley Mowat, Windsor McKay (creator of Little Nemo, among other things), Lord Dunsany, or Charles L. Dodgson
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus is a great book, a fine example of Stoic philosophy/reverie, and what all those modern daily-reflection books wish they could be. Once, while working at Waldenbooks, I decided to see how many books on Stoicism I could sell - 1 year later I had sold 100 copies of the Meditations
A few other books (in no particular order): The Mighty Atom: Biography of a Superhuman (by Spielman. I've only read this book 6 or 7 times), The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (Maalouf), The Golden Age (Kenneth Graham), D'Aulaires Book of Greek Mythology (D'Aulaire), As a Driven Leaf (Steinberg), Eothen (Kinglake), Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist (HaLevi)
Some great nautical reads: Logbook for Grace (Murphy), Looking for a Ship (McPhee), Under the Black Flag (Cordingly), Sea Change (Peter Nichols), Out-Island Doctor (Cottman), Longitude (Sobel), Master and Commander (O'Brian), Shanties and Sailors' Songs (or anything else by Hugill)
Lone Wolf and Cub - probably the best comic I'll ever read

Movies & Actors

Alec Guinness - any movie with this man in it can't be all bad (kind of like Jack Palance that way), and is likely fantastic!.
- A Run for the Money (Trying to get 2 Welshmen to a London sports match can be difficult)
- Kind Hearts & Coronets ("I shot an arrow into the air, she fell to earth in Berkeley square")
- The Man in the White Suit, Last Holiday, Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai, Lavendar Hill Mob, Captain's Holiday... oh, and those movies for George Lucas too.
Robert Bolt - Having written the play (and screenplay) A Man for All Seasons, and the screenplay for Lawrence of Arabia, I'd go see anything else he's done.
Cool Hand Luke - just about the best movie ever made! "I got my head right, Boss."
Scaramouche - The best sword movie I'm ever likely to see, and a great story, thanks to Raphael Sabatini.
Basil Rathbone - a great actor who was also an accomplished fencer. Script be damned, I say he shouldn't have lost to Errol Flynn in Captain Blood!
Local Hero (and not just because Mark Knopfler did the music)
Brother from Another Planet
Bagdad Cafe
The Man Who Would Be King
Shakespeare in Love
Whisky Galore
Amelie
Cyrano de Bergerac (which could just as easily go above, in the poetry section, thanks to Mr. Rostrands verse)
Dreamchild (or anything with Jim Henson & Frank Oz - the gods of my childhood)
most any movie with a good swordfight

Whisky (Scotch whisky, mostly. The US, Ireland, and even India have some nice ones, but overall...)

Taslisker, Caol Ila, Ardbeg, and Tobermory are always good
Bruichladdich in general is excellent whisky, and runs the friendliest distillery I know!
Did I mention that Bruichladdich made PC5 and PC6? Wow, is that good whisky!
A'bunadh is a cask strength scotch from the Aberlour distillery that is very warming and very good. A balance of bourbon and sherry finishes that works extremely well. (it got a little boring around batch 20, but now in the high 40s it's good again)
Old Malt Cask is an excellent independant bottler - the most consistantly tasty independent bottler I know
Speymalt somehow turns mediocre Macallan into fantastic stuff
McCarthy's is a little known scotch-style whisky here in the Northwest which swings well above its weight!
Dollar for dollar, Green Label is the best thing that Johnny Walker sells - delicious and ⅓ the cost of Blue Label.
Glenfarclas, Mortlach, Strathisla, Clynelish, the list of good distilleries goes on
...and then there are those one of a kind bottles. PC5, Arran Sauterne cask, Glenfarclas 1974, Springbank 1965, Talisker 30, Longrow Tokay Wood

Fight the dearth of real mail! When you add another voice and story to my world you help make the ratio of good-to-junk mail more favorable.

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