Top Ten Movie Favorites for 2025

Posted on December 30, 2025 by smellincoffee

Today’s TTT is our ten most recent acquisitions, but I’m going to be wicked and do my top ten favorite films watched for this year, instead. But first, the Teaseday Tues!

[Tyler] was an Old Republican who pledged fealty to the states’ rights bible of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, but beyond that it was difficult to pin him down. He became a Jacksonian Democrat but consistently opposed President Jackson. He became a Whig but usually opposed the party’s nationalistic agenda. When he did so in the White House, party members banished him, making him a president without a party. Charges of partisan disloyalty never troubled Tyler. In fact, he seemed to enjoy his reputation as a political renegade.” PRESIDENT WITHOUT A PARTY

I have watched well over a hundred movies this year, going on tangents like “John Grisham movies” and “movies with James Gandolfini” in them. Can I manage to pick ten favorites? Rewatches like Gettysburg are disqualified. I will paste in my original notes and supplement them as appropriate.

(1) Wonka, 2023. A Charlie and the Chocolate Factory prequel that surprised me both in terms of general quality and sheer delightedness. I loved the musical numbers.

(2) The Straight Story, 1999. Excellent film about an old retired farmer who, upon learning his brother had a stroke, decides their ten-year silence after a bitter argument needs to be ended. Since he is old and prideful, he decides to visit said brother on….a lawnmower. Phenom acting.


(3) 10 Cloverfield Lane . Horror-suspense film.  A young woman is hit in a car wreck and wakes up chained in a basement, and soon meets her captor, John Goodman, who alleges that the United States has been attacked and that the outside air is now toxic. Although she’s dubious and tries to escape,  she becomes convinced after seeing evidence of an attack outside – but  that doesn’t mean Goodman’s character still isn’t unhinged and and dangerous.  Very effective.

(4) Men in Black III.   I watched the original movie when it came out, of course, and tolerated the second one, but it wasn’t until that I saw Josh Brolin’s Tommy Lee Jones impersonation –  which he does throughout this film – that I thought, holy WOW do I need to see this.  Will Smith is “J” and is thrown back in time to 1969 to help his partner K (Tommy Lee Jones/Josh Bronlin) knock off an alien who wants to destroy Earth.  This involves manhandling Andy Warhol and putting a thingy on the Apollo 11 Saturn-10.  Such a good film, between the acting and the raygun gothic tech. 


(5) Carnage, 2011.   I have only watched Inglorious Basterds one time since its release, but I have rewatched every single Christoph Waltz scene more times than I can remember.  I asked ChatGPT for movies where Waltz was a similarly dominant presence, and it recommended this – a comedy wherein he features alongside JODIE FOSTER!!, Kate Winslet, and that guy from Step-Brothers who isn’t Will Ferrell.  Four parents meet in a room to discuss what to do after their respective children get in a fight that ends with broken teeth. They get into a lot of side discussions and there’s interesting shifting character dynamics: different characters side with one another in different scenes depending on where the conversation is going. (This gets…more interesting after a bottle of 18 year old single-malt Scotch is uncorked.)  This is a difficult movie to summarize, but if you’re into character drama like myself it’s quite a treat, especially with heavyweights like Waltz and Foster aboard. A plausible drinking game could be composed of the times that Waltz and Winslet take on or take off their coats and attempt to leave.  

(6) Zero Day (2003). AColumbine-inspired  found footage documentary, in which we witness two friends with violent fantasies collude and plan a school shooting.  What makes Zero Day so utterly disturbing is the nature of the production itself, the “found footage” approach: the film is presented as a series of clips taken from consumer video recorders,  some purposely filmed by the future shooters as a record for the future, some simply documenting their lives as-lived. We get a sense of the boys as people, with utterly normal social circles and lives, though they do have resentments toward certain parties at school. One such person is “Brad Huff”, a jerk jock whose house they pelt with rotten eggs after arriving at his home to find his SUV nowhere in sight.  The found footage is eerily weird, with expect amounts of outtakes, muffed lines, and “teenagers mugging for the camera” that you’d expect.  It avoids the poor widdle buwwied story completely: we see two teenagers with unhealthy interior lives and an uncanny awareness of how they’d be perceived afterwards ratcheting each other into a course of destruction, where they will escape a world and a school they hate by turning it into a bloody mess.  Zero Day is far more unsettlingthan Elephant for its approach, though I will admit to being partial toward found footage.(See my affection for The Blair Witch Project, which continues to disappoint my film buddies.)

(7) Terminator 2: Judgement Day, 1991.    I watched Terminator some years ago, enough that I’ve forgotten most everything but the basic premise and the haunting percussive soundtrack.  Bottom line: in the future,  sentient machines are waging war on humanity and they want to destroy the leader of the resistance by knocking off his mother.  Terminator 2 reintroduces Arnie as The Terminator, a killing machine, but now his former target (the future human rebellion leader John Connor) has reprogrammed some iteration of him to protect John Connor in the past. This is necessary because the machines waging war on humanity have sent back another terminator, this one a shapeshifter,   I didn’t realize how much of this movie has saturated pop culture: I recognized line after line.  While going in I had some doubts – movies that are just chase scenes and supermen bashing the hell out of each other and destroying property bore me, hence why I watch very few superhero movies – this proved far more compelling than predicted. There was one scene where I thought “WOW!  What a great finale!” and then realized – wait a minute, there’s twenty minutes left in this film. Nice twist.  The special effects are crazy for 1991, and it’s replete with  badass reloads. 

(8) St. Vincent, 2014. Bill Murray is a broke misanthropic ….widower? with a drinking problem.  Then the house next door to him gets a single mom and her kid, Oliver.  Insert Man Called Ove plot, only instead of being a very functional grump, Bill is more of a dysfunctional lush whose bond with Oliver no one understands. I love almost any movie Bill is in, and of course readers know I am an absolute sucker for the “curmudgeon is recalled to life” trope. This one is more gritty than Ove or say, Frank and Red:   Murray’s character is deep in hock to loan sharks and has gambling, prostitution, drinking and cigarette addictions.  However….as the movie progresses, we realize there’s more to Bill’s story than meets the eye: it’s a tough, tear-terking tale that turns out wonderfully sweet.  A very me movie, I will say. 

(9) The Last Castle, 2001. Superb drama with James Gandfolini, Robert Redford, and a young Mark Ruffalo.  A general (Redford)  with a legendary reputation – who was famously tortured in Hanoi but refused early release to remain with his men – is the newest prisoner of a military prison.   Gandolfini, the commandant, is immediately torn with admiration for the man, plus his professional need to treat him like any other prison – including abject humiliation. Redford, though, is something of a Stoic, and I am certain Admiral James Stockdale was the inspiration for him.  Redford, by personal example and admonition, urges the men to be true to the best in themselves, to comport themselves with dignity.  There’s a moving scene where the men gather in formation and sing the USMC fight song in honor of a prisoner who stood on principle and was shot down in cold-blooded murder. Disgusted by Gandfolini’s treatment of the men, Redford moves to take over the prison in an effort have Gandfolini removed from his post as per the Military Code of Justice. (Losing control of your prison =  update your resume, sport.)  I don’t think I’ve seen Redford in anything else, but I believe I will now.  I do have….questions, like HOW DID PRISONERS BUILD A TREBUCHET?     One of ending scenes – of Old Glory rising above fire and ruins – gave me shudders. This came out five weeks after September 11, when similar shots could have been taken at Ground Zero. 

(10) The Lincoln Lawyer, 2011. Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei!, William Macy, and – – BRYAN CRANSTON?   Oh, and Bob Gunton, who played Captain Maxwell in ST TNG’s “The Cardassians”.  Matthew McConaughey plays a ‘street lawyer’ of sorts  –  representing all sorts of genuine criminals who are scattered so widely across greater LA that he spends his days in Lincoln towncar. A potentially lucrative case has an uncanny resemblance of one of his earlier cases, and M.M. begins wondering if he isn’t actually defending a monster.

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End Year Short Rounds: Frankenstein, Merlin, and Stephen Douglas

Posted on December 29, 2025 by smellincoffee

Although I ostensibly took a break from the blog on Christmas eve to focus on real life and all that, part of my brain is resolutely blog-oriented and insisted I keep reading so that I did not fail the Science Survey. This is, I should note, my self-imposed challenge, meaning nothing will happen if I fail it — only my own disappointment. I have, for the record, muffed one year, and nothing bad came of it: in fact, I was so annoyed with myself I finished the next year’s survey rather early. I read three science books in the last week, satisfying the Survey, and finished off the history book I’ve been nibbling on for a couple of weeks besides. Are they my last reads for this year? Mm…probably, unless I pick up The Widow (a Christmas gift) and knock it out, but there will be another review coming as I finished Wendell Berry’s latest (a gift from the ladyfriend) on Saturday night. I am also working on a biography of President John Tyler, but it’s a hefty boy so I don’t know that I will finish it before the year’s end. At any rate, I’m presently sitting at a nice round number and am content.

Mary Roach’s Replacable You is a dive into how humans have or are trying to cope with the lost of body parts or body functions; we begin with medieval types replacing noses that got lopped off during saber-drawn hijinks and move quickly into the 21st century.  Roach, for those who have not read her, combines science, squickiness, and some level of humor. This is  is heavy on the squick, so reader discretion is advised:    even her Gut didn’t have so many applications of our intestines.  Possibly the most interesting chapter was Roach’s personal experience with using an iron lung — that, or her holding a still-beating heart in her hands.


Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Just Visiting This Planet returns to his “Merlin” character, an ageless and knowledgeable sort from another planet who answers questions from Earthlings via a newspaper column.  As the title implies, the focus of Merlin’s answers here is much closer to Earth: the overwhelming majority of questions are about matters of local astronomy. We learn about how the Earth may be viewed from the moon, for instance, and Merlin explains why we don’t feel the rotating earth.

Mark Miodownik’s It’s a Gas! was the most disappointing of this group. It promises to explore several different gases and their role in our lives, but it’s not like some of the several books I’ve read on the elements. Almost none of the gases here are discrete elements, in fact; with the exception of oxygen, Miodownik deals largely with compounds like nitrous oxide and the air itself. Although there’s plenty of science here, there’s a lot of digression as well, from history to politics. Fun fact: Samuel Colt raised funds for the production of his famous revolver by dressing up as a doctor and giving nitrous oxide demonstrations.

Lastly, and a departure from science, I’ve been reading Arguing Until Doomsday these last few weeks. This is a joint look at the lives of Jefferson Davis and Stephen E. Douglas, and through their political histories, an examination of how the Democratic party fractured through the 1850s and led the way for a purely sectional candidate — Abraham Lincoln — to win the election with only 39% of the popular vote. The book largely focuses on Douglas, which makes sense given how much more of a challenge he had. Jefferson Davis was essentially the heir of John Calhoun in representing southern (or at least, plantation) interests: his goal was to make the Democracy a reliable protector of those interests. While previous generations had been content if the government were not directly adversarial to them, the disruption caused by the Kansas-Nebraska act meant that offense could be the one and only defense. If the government did not actively protect slavery and “property”, the South would be corralled in and its ‘pecuilar institution’ actively attacked by a North increasingly assisted by western states. Douglas had a harder row to hoe, trying to be a candidate who could unite the Democracy against rival parties like the nativist Know-Nothings and the rising Republicans. He sought an answer in popular sovereignty, or majoritarianism, in which the people of a territory made the decision of whether or not their state would be slave or free. This led to not only things like Bleeding Kansas, but changed the way discussions on the transcontinental railroad developed. Jefferson Davis presented a far better argument for a southern route than his colleagues could for a northern route, but there were fears that a southern line would disrupt the advantage northerners had in populating the west coast, or at least make it easier for the ‘slave power’ to extend itself across the rails. Ultimately, the South — seeing abolitionist violence on the rise — would make the decision to break from the Democracy and ultimately, from the Union. This is an extremely detailed account of Davis and Douglas’ grapple for the future of the Democratic party; a little inside baseball at times, but considering my current obsession, it suited my tastes exactly. I am planning on reading Chorus of the Union, Douglas’ postelection attempts to keep the South from leaving the Union, sometime soon.

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Harry Potter and the Quest to Get Expelled: Full Cast Audio!

Posted on December 28, 2025 by smellincoffee

Recently I took a chance on the full-cast audio version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone that’s just come out. I say “took a chance” because the preview on Audible does not communicate the nature of the book especially well, focusing entirely on the narrator, whom I liked well enough but did not want to commit to, considering I listened to Stephen Fry narrate this same book earlier in the year. I’m glad I threw my credit at Audible, though, because the full-cast audio is terrific. Its sound design makes it more of an audio drama, and the voice-acting bench is fairly good. As “full cast audio” implies, every character has a different actor, so there’s no dealing with a narrator having to do falsettos to reach out of his range. Interestingly, although this edition carries the American title in Audible, it was recorded with the original text, so the students do “revisions” instead of studying. I’ve read a British version of Philosopher’s Stone and somehow missed that until I heard it being said multiple times here.

An important thing to note about this full-cast audio edition—and a selling point, I’d say—is that the sound design is atmospheric. We don’t simply have actors reading lines one at a time: when one is speaking, we can hear others reacting in the background. There’s originality here as well, in that we hear background reactions that are not written down word-for-word in Rowling’s original text. Spatiality is also incorporated. When the scene is focused on Harry, as it were, and someone speaks from across the room, we hear them as such—at least, if we have stereo speakers. When I was driving through a foggy wood and listening to this, I had the startling experience of having a character yell at “Harry” from my passenger door. Not the sort of Forbidden Forest immersion I’d expected! There are also audio effects: characters speaking from behind a door are muffled, and there’s a kind of rippling intro when characters are reading from a letter or remembering something someone said earlier. The sound design also includes effects like footsteps and crowd noise, along with some music, delicately applied in only a few scenes where it feels especially appropriate. I was very much impressed. The voice-acting bench is strong. So far, the only character whose voice I don’t like is Snape’s—and I swear it’s not just because he doesn’t sound like Alan Rickman. The problem is he sounds like a nasty insurance agent who doesn’t like his job, but who has been doing it too long to do anything else and is many years yet away from retirement. He’s bored and slightly bitter but not….Snapey. Other characters make me suspect that their movie actors slightly inspired their casting — especially Hagrid and Oliver Wood — but on the whole the bench is distinct, yet recognizable.

I can see continuing in this series, but more as a every-once-in-a–while treat. I loved the experience, but it seems silly to spend credits on a book series I’ve already read, and — in the case of the early books — listened to several different versions of. This post’s title comes from my amused observation (while driving) that Harry appears to spend most of the book actively trying to get into trouble, especially after dark.

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Science Survey, 2025!

Posted on December 28, 2025 by smellincoffee

Yes, despite entering the month with three items pending, and despite my history obsession and the sloth that comes with the holidays, I knocked out Chemistry/Physics, Biology, and Local Astronomy this past week. Hurrah for the Christmas holidays! ….reviews will follow, probably mostly in short-round form.

HE’S STEALING HOME, THEY DON’T SEE HIM, I DON’T BELIEVE IT, THE PITCH —
HE’S IN THE DIRT, HE’S IN THE DIRT, HE’S —
SAFE! SAFE! SAFE! HE STOLE HOME!

Cosmology and Astrophysics
Merlin’s Tour of the Universe, Neil deGrasse Tyson

Local Astronomy
Just Visiting Myself, Neil deGrasse Tyson

Geology, Oceanography, and Natural History
Ends of the Earth: Journeys to the Polar Regions, Neil Shubin

Chemistry and Physics
It’s a Gas!, Mio Midownik

Cognition, Neurology, and Psychology:
Nerve: Adventures in the Science of Fear, Eve Holland

Biology
Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, Mary Roach

Flora and Fauna
The Light Eaters: The Unseen World of Plant Intelligence, Zoe Schlanger

Archaeology and Anthropology
Primate Made: How the World We Made is Changing Us, Vybarr Cregan-Reid

Weather and Climate
Storm of the Century, Al Roker

Ecology
Bringing Back the Beaver, Derek Gow

Thinking Scientifically
Conversations with Carl Sagan, ed. Tom Head

Wildcard: (Science Biography, History of Science, Science and Health, or Science and Society)
Chernobyl’s Wild Kingdom, Rebecca L. Johnson

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And this is why we do not discuss politics at Christmas lunch

Posted on December 24, 2025 by smellincoffee

(Yes, yes, I know I’m taking a break, but I read this today and it was too funny and too appropriate to leave alone.)

Jefferson Davis vs Henry S Foote

“On December 25, 1847, one day after Cass wrote to Nicholson, [Jefferson] Davis confronted colleague Henry S. Foote at a Christmas party and berated him for defending popular sovereignty. When Foote barked back, Davis dropped his crutches, leaped on Foote, and beat him until onlookers pulled them apart. Davis wanted to settle things with pistols but agreed to dismiss the fracas as a ‘Christmas frolic.'”

Jefferson Davis was obviously inspired by legends of St. Nicholas punching a heretic in the face at the Council of Nicaea. And now, back to Christmastide!

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WWW Wednesday

Posted on December 24, 2025 by smellincoffee

WHAT have you finished reading recently? Bosom Friends, a book examining the alliance between James Buchanan and William Rufus King, and Zachary Taylor, a biography of President Zachary Taylor. Also, Millard Fillmore by the aptly named Finkleman. I will not review it save for copy-pasting my Goodreads dismissal.

WHAT are you reading now? Arguing until Doomsday, a study of Stephen Douglas’ and Jefferson Davis’ respective roles in the increasing sectional crisis of the 1840s and ’50s. I am also listening to the new full-cast Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and enjoying it.

WHAT are you reading next? Possibly biographies of Tyler and Polk. I’d considered The Rise and Fall of the Whig Party, but it’s 1300 pages and I don’t think even I am that interested in the Whigs at this moment, even if there’s probably more useful info on Fillmore than in the biography I just finished and washed my hands of. I can’t say I’d expected that the early 19th century presidents would dominate my Hail to the Chief reading, but that’s the joy and peril of being a mood reader.

I will not be reviewing or even short-rounding Finkelman’s biography of Millard Fillmore, who was so shabbily abused by the book that I’m almost compelled to defend him despite his faults. To quote my goodreads review:

This is not a biography, it is character assassination by an alleged biographer. Finkelman opens the book by declaring his intention is to bury Fillmore in the bottom five of American presidents, and everything he writes is to that end. He finds a way to hang a black hat on Fillmore for everything — from his poor upbringing to the fact that Commodore Perry’s fleet arrived in Japan after Fillmore was out of office. The author’s declared bias made me suspicious of his use of evidence & such, and his declaration that Fillmore had refused to assist in the annexation of Hawaii finalized my judgement: the author’s wording makes one think that he is writing about Grover Cleveland decades later, whereas as far as I can tell from background research Fillmore was trying to throw a wrench in France’s attempts to claim Hawaii as theirs. Finkelman is an untrustworthy author, this book is a stain on this entire series, and Schlesinger should be ashamed for having signed off on it.

It looks like December will be history and…mm, pretty much nothing else. I generally begin the year with a variety kickoff, though, so let not your hearts be troubled. Speaking of — this is scheduled to post at midnight on Christmas Eve, and as I did last year I will probably take a break from reading and posting in the days around Christmas. So, Merry Christmas one and all!

“Come in! Come in and know me better, Man!”

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Old Rough and Ready Taylor

Posted on December 23, 2025 by smellincoffee

When I think of Zachary Taylor, I can see a craggy face right out of a western– and for some reason, I think of cherries. (My adult brain has somehow managed to remember some 25+ years after reading a book of the presidents that his death was tied to gobbling down cherries and milk.) Zachary Taylor was not a politician by inclination or upbringing: he grew up in Kentucky, hearing about his father’s deeds in the American Revolution, and yearned to take his own place in the ranks. In frontier America, Army officers could divide their time between farming and serving in the small camps that dotted the borders between America and Indian country. This Taylor did, though he was always happier in service to the Army. He was involved in both the Black Hawk War and the fight against the Seminoles in Florida, and it was on his watch that hostilities began with Mexico. Taylor’s troops had been ordered to the disputed territory between ‘official’ America and Mexico, and the bellicose tête-à-tête was such that Mexican troops attacked Taylor’s in land that President Polk maintained was DC’s. It was in Mexico that Taylor’s victories against Santa Ana made him a war hero — and a political candidate who was elected despite not having any political experience or expressed political ideas at all.

This is an extremely short biography of a man whose term in office was cut short by a gastrointestinal issue, but it has the advantage of focusing on someone whose professional life was directly involved with two of the rachets up of sectional tension. Not only was Taylor famously involved in the war against Mexico that created pressure for more territories with the potential to disrupt the north-south balance, but it was during his tenure in office that gold rush California made its bid to join the Union tout de suite — as an anti-slave state. There was also a bit of an interstate war between Texas and New Mexico, where militias were mixing it up to press Texas’ claim to Santa Fe. Taylor would take a hard line against this Lone Star tomfoolery, but Texas would again invade New Mexico during the Civil War. Interestingly, his son would serve in the war on the Confederate side, and would unwittingly lead to future historians’ frustrations: Union troops burned Taylor’s son’s home, including all of the president’s papers. Taylor’s death was a genuine lost to the Union: given that he was a Southern Unionist, I wonder what might’ve happened had he been able to exert influence past 1850. Although this book is brief, it is one that offers some insight into how disruptive the Mexican war was, as well as amusing trivia like Taylor being the father-in-law of Jefferson Davis for all of three months, until the woman who united them — Sarah Knox Taylor — died of malaria.

Quotations

At a time when rogues abounded, Wilkinson was unique in the varieties of his villainy. Some officers were treacherous, some were avaricious, and some were simply incompetent. Wilkinson managed to combine all three.

Conditions at camp beggared description. More men were sick than well, and it was impossible to care for all their needs. Sanitation did not exist. Spoiled food, supplied by seedy and frequently corrupt contractors, revolted those who were supposed to eat it. Attempts at burial were pitiful. Interred higgledy-piggledy in shallow graves, the protruding arms and legs of the deceased took the place of missing markers in reminding the living of the fate that might be theirs.

“I am not a party candidate, and if elected, cannot be President of a party, but the President of the whole people.”

“The intense heat, for which Washington is famous, was exacerbated by the humidity. The fill-in soil that exists between the White House and the Potomac today did not exist in 1849, and the White House was close to the marshes at the edge of the river.”

With a straight face, he revealed an incredible blunder, his sending Andrew J. Donelson to Frankfurt am Main as the American minister to the German Empire, only to discover, on Donelson’s arrival, that the German Empire did not exist. Donelson had therefore sent the papers of the legation to Berlin, where the United States had a minister to Prussia.

On April 17, Benton finally lost patience with Foote’s attacks and, when the latter began his usual vituperation, rose and began approaching the Mississippian, who pulled a pistol and retreated down the aisle toward the front of the Senate chamber. Stopped once, Benton then saw the pistol. Rather than retreat, he thrust open his coat and continued in Foot’es direction. “I have no pistols,” he shouted. “Let him fire. Stand out of the way! Let the assassin fire!” Confusion broke loose, but several level-headed senators grasped both men and led them back to their seats.



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Top Ten Titles Most Recently Added to my Goodreads TBR

Posted on December 23, 2025 by smellincoffee

Today’s treble T is books we hope Santy Clause leaves, or bookish wishes in general.  The compulsory gift-giving is my least favorite part of Christmas, at least when small children aren’t involved – especially when absurd scenarios like adults taking turns giving each other gift cards surfaces. Those things are a scam, in my opinion –  some of them don’t even let you wipe the card, so you have to be careful about what you buy so that you use up as much of the gift amount as you can. Anyhoo, I’m going to list the last ten books I added to my Goodreads wanna-read shelf, starting from most recent and working backwards.    A couple of these were added not by me, but by goodreads when I entered giveaways for them.  I don’t add books to this list often – my mental TBR is bigger and far more hazy – and  it’s funny to look back and see my Roman history mood from the late summer be replaced by a mid-19th century history mood that reigns at present.

But first, a tease!

Tuesday Teaser

When [Stephen Douglas’] mother remarried Gehazi Granger in late 1830, she moved to his upstate New York home, accompanied by seventeen-year-old Stephen, who entered Canandaigua Academy.There, Douglas made lasting friendships rooted in mischief, including furtive poetry recitations enlivened by whiffs of nitrous oxide.

To say that Stephen Douglas lived and breathed politics is to make apt use of a stale cliche. He scheduled his wedding for the narrow window between the 1856 election and the opening of a new session of Congress — after courting his Adele Curtis on the campaign trail. – ARGUING UNTIL DOOMSDAY

(1) The Birth of Modern Politics:  Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams,  and the Election of 1828,  Lynn Hudson Parsons

(2)  Arguing Until Doomsday: Stephen Douglas, Jefferson Davis, and the Struggle for American Democracy, Michael E. Wood

(3)  A Generation at War: The Civil War Era in a Northern Community, Nicole Etcheson

(4) Storm Tide, Paul Doiron. (Hey! A non-history title!)

(5)  Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire, Katja  Hoyer

(6) The Crossroads,  CJ Box.

(7) Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America’s Revolutionary Era , Mike Bunn

(8)  A Rome of One’s Own: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire, Emma Southon

(9) Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens: A History of Ancient Greece ,  A. H. Robin Waterfield
(10)  The Eagle and the Lion: Rome, Persia and an Unwinnable Conflict,  Adrian Goldsworthy

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Bosom Friends

Posted on December 22, 2025 by smellincoffee

James Buchanan remains the United States’  only bachelor president –  he was technically joined in this feat by Cleveland for one term, but by the time 22 had returned as 24, he had found his better half.  Buchanan, though,  despite numerous flirtations and one possible engagement, never fully tied the knot.  In this chronic bachelorhood he was joined for a time by William Rufus King, the son of a prominent  Carolina family who with his brother took early parts in the development of Alabama: King, in fact, founded the town of Selma,  though he remained more interested in national rather than city politics.   Buchanan and King served in Congress together, and lived together.   This has sometimes given speculators in the 21st century cause to wonder if the two weren’t an item together, and exploring that possibility is the ostensible purpose of this book. Readers eager to dive into the romance lives of old men wearing frock coats, however, will be disappointed – just as I was relieved. Instead of being a work of historical gossip, the author instead uses the close friendship and political alliance between Buchanan and King to explore the role of “messes” and personal alliance in the early-mid 19th century. 

When this book first came out, I gave it a wary look:  since William Rufus King is our town founder we should have anything and everything possible on him, but this one struck me at first sight as gossipy and salacious.  My recent Buchanan dive, however, made me look at this one a little more closely, and I found it far more substantive than expected.  Knowing his reader’s expectations, however – having partially set them –  Thomas Balcerski opens the book by looking at the rumors of King and Buchanan’s alleged pairing.  He points out first that the fact that they lived together is absolutely meaningless: in early Washington,   Congressmen often shared boarding houses together, generally in politically-related clumps called “messes”.  This owed in part to the lack of housing in Washington City in general: it was a city still very much being formed.  King and Buchanan’s arrangement was slightly different, as theirs was the self-consciously styled “Bachelor’s Mess”: they were joined by numerous other men through the decade or so that the mess was intact, but the other bachelors had a habit of running off and getting married.  Balcerski also looks at the language used by these men in their letters together, and the dismissive way other men dismissed them as effeminate.   It was not uncommon for politicians to attack one another by accusing them of being effeminate or ladylike; Buchanan, in fact,  would dismiss John Quincy Adams in adjacent language, calling him a “witch”.   The language used in the letters is rather intimate by our reckoning, Balcerski writes,  but not unusual in the context of its times .  While there’s certainly room to read between the lines, ultimately Balcerski maintains there’s no real evidence one way or another.  King swore that he’d fallen in love with the princess of Russia and could not find room in his heart for anyone else, and Buchanan flirted with women throughout his life and was even engaged for a time, though something went sideways and he was not even permitted to follow her funeral train when she died. Both men would devote themselves to their nieces and nephews, and rely on their oldest nieces as personal assistants of a sort: it was Harriet Lane and Catherine Margaret Ellis who retained their uncles’ letters and allow us any insight at all into their 19th century wheeling and dealing.

The majority of the book follows Buchanan and King’s lives in Washington as they made common cause together, at least for the most part. Both would eventually be affiliated with the Democratic party, working for national unity despite sectional rivalries.   I truly did not understand the angst around the Union’s health that pervaded the early 19th century:   between New England threatening to secede in the 1810s, South Carolina threatening and very nearly doing so in the 1820s, and so on,  there’s a salient sense that this experiment in unitive democracy might  and very well could fail. While balances and deals were struck – sometimes involving these men’s input –  the Mexican war sorely unstabled things by adding enormous swathes of land to the United States’ potential for settlement.  King, the conservative southerner, was conservative more in a Kirk sense than we appreciate. He knew full well that adding all those lands would create drama that might  disrupt the tentative peace the South now enjoyed: his northern bestie Buchanan, however, was an eager expansionist, eager  to drive the Stars and Stripes westward to the Pacific.   The ‘mess’ system allowed for political work to be done even outside of Congress, and Buchanan and King would both be rising stars: eventually Buchanan would be tempted by a Supreme Court seat, and be elected president, and King would be elected vice president. His career was tragically cut short by tuberculosis: he died a month into office, and makes me wonder what someone of his even temper would have done during the ‘secession winter’ of 1860 had he lived.

I found a few irritating bits early on, mostly in connection to my local history interests:  Balcerski mentions that King settled near “the new town” of Selma and does this several times before getting around to the fact that King in fact founded said town, choosing its name from the Songs of Ossian. On the whole, though, I enjoyed this: it helps to be in a particular mood for this topic at present, and to be able to read claims made here in the context of other books as I struggle to get a bead on who Buchanan was. This was an altogether different look at 19th century dealmaking and political alliances, and I think the author makes fair use of his contacts without drifting into speculation.

Quotations

The petty squabble altered Buchanan’s previously rosy view of the nature of mankind. His father consoled him with a truism that shaped the outlook of the future politician: “The more you know of mankind the more you will distrust them.”

In one memorable anecdote, Buchanan happened upon Jackson in his private quarters at the White House while the latter was dressed only in shirtsleeves. Young Buck reminded Old Hickory that he was scheduled to receive a visit from a lady and encouraged the president to change into more suitable clothes. After a second such reminder, Jackson supposedly replied, “Mr. Buchanan, I once knew a man in Tennessee who made a large fortune—by minding his own business.”

President Buchanan sent his fourth annual message to Congress on December 3, 1860. At times, the document assumed an almost apocalyptic tone. He meditated at length about the constitutional crisis precipitated by South Carolina’s proposed ordinance of secession and concluded that neither the president nor the Congress possessed the power to enforce the preservation of the Union. “The fact is, that our Union rests upon public opinion,” he declared, “and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war.”

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Narnia’s audible end: the Silver Chair & the Last Battle

Posted on December 22, 2025 by smellincoffee

This year I began re-experiencing Narnia through audible’s collection, in large part because I was able to pick up all seven titles with single credit and couldn’t resist. I’ve just finished the last two this month.

Jeremy Northam’s Silver Chair opens with Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole being plucked into Narnia for reasons known only to the Lion. He informs them that King Caspian’s young son Rilian is missing, and that their orders are to follow four signs and rescue him. Jill and Eustace are full of doubts, fears, and squabbling, and soon they missed several signs and find themselves in deep trouble. Literal deep trouble, as they’re trapped in an underground kingdom ruled by a woman that readers will recognize a the White Witch, but which Eustace and Jill don’t know enough to twig on to. Eventually, they will begin to realize that foul is not fair, and cling to the truth they know to escape. I included some more details in my book review ten years ago. I enjoyed Northam’s narration, especially his Puddleglum, but I’m very partial to Puddleglum regardless.

Jill and Eustace return in The Last Battle, which is positively apocalyptic. Evil reigns in Narnia, and not the ordinary kind who the White Witch embodied. This is a deeper evil: while the Witch did wickedness purely to gratify her own desires — her lust for power, her appetite for cruelty — here the evil is deliberately subversive and transgressive. A malicious ape, Shift, finds the body of a lion and has a marvelous idea: skinning it, he bullies his unwitting donkey friend Puzzle (who is none too bright) into wearing the skin and pretending to be Aslan. Since the great Lion has not been seen in Narnia for centuries, Shift has an idea that he can exploit the awe in which the Lion is held to his own benefit. Sure enough, Shift has soon put himself in power and begins giving all of Narnia the Mordor treatment: stripping its enchanted forests to sell lumber to the Calormen. When Eustace and Jill arrive, they are soon joined by the king, Tirian, and in a desperate battle. In times past, the name Aslan could be used to call for allies: now, however, the name has been subverted. The ape’s claim that his actions — working the talking horses, stripping the forests, etc – – are done in the name of Aslan has so ruined the great lion’s reputation that his name is uttered with fear and loathing instead of awe and adoration. Ultimately, the actions of the aple — inviting the Calormen and their god into Narnia – -will presage the End of Things, and we see every preceding main character but Susan, who had gotten too much into nylons and dresses and was no longer a friend of Narnia. This was voiced superbly by Patrick Stewart, so I loved the presentation.

These two paired well together; not only are they dealing with spiritual subversion of a kind — the Witch gaslighting the children into thinking there is no Overworld, no Narnia, and then the Ape being used to destroy Narnians’ love of Aslan and the Narnia he created — but The Last Battle is very fitting for the Advent season. Advent is not only a season of waiting for Christmas, but waiting for the “Second Advent” — the end of days.

Coming up….another Buchanan biography, only now he’s paired with someone; a Zachary Taylor biography, and a Stephen Douglas v Jeff Davis duel. Will I ever escape the mid-19th century? Stay tuned!

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