Better Call Saul

The second season of Better Call Saul starts on February 15.  THC is generally wary of spin offs and this was a spin off of Breaking Bad, his favorite series, but they pulled it off and it's quite good.   So, to get ready here's some of Saul's best lines from Breaking Bad, and Mike Ehmantraut's (Jonathan Banks, who also stars in Saul) chilling speech from the series. Unfortunately, Mike's speech has been overdubbed with a music track that was not in the original.

 

Boston Accents

Trailer for the upcoming film Boston Accents, starring Seth Meyers and probably directed by Ben Affleck.  It looks like it'll be wicked awesome.  And if you want the literary take on how Bostonians talk read Eddie Coyle's Friend: George V Higgins.

The Bridge At Alcantara

(from wikipeda)

By this time it should be evident that THC enjoys Roman history (of the empire & republic eras) as well as Roman roads, and, for that matter, roads of any type (see The Lincoln Highway and Forgotten Americans: Edmund de Smedt).

The Roman bridge at Alcantara was built between 104 and 106 AD in the reign of the Emperor Trajan, whose family hailed from Spain.  The arch in the middle of the bridge bears the inscription Pontem perpetui mansurum in saecula ("I have built a bridge which will last forever") as well as Trajan's multiple titles.  Although some reconstruction has occurred over the centuries, including one of the arches destroyed in 1809 during the Peninsular War between France and Britain.

616 feet long and 26 feet wide the bridge is located on the border of Spain and Portugal.  No mortar was used in its construction.

Mr Knox's Cannon Arrive

(from wikipedia)

They rolled the 59 guns onto the Commons in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the headquarters of General George Washington and his Continental Army.  It was 240 years ago on January 27, 1776.  It was Henry Knox, a 25 year old Boston bookshop owner, member of the Sons of Liberty and participant in the Boston Tea Party of 1773 who had suggested transporting the cannon captured in May 1775 by Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold and the Green Mountain Boys when they seized the British forts at Ticonderoga and Crown Point in New York, northeast of Albany.
(1771 ad for Knox's bookshop, from Wikipedia)

Knox, a self-taught engineer, met George Washington when he'd arrived in Cambridge in July 1775 and the two immediately hit it off.  While some thought Knox's plan to transport heavy cannon on oxen-pulled sledges for 300 miles across rough roads and paths and over the Berkshire Mountains in the middle of winter a harebrained scheme, Washington recognized the importance of having heavy artillery in forcing the British army to evacuate Boston and approved Knox's proposal.
(from hulettsonlakegeorge)
 
Knox and his men arrived at Ticonderoga on December 5, 1775 and immediately began moving what Henry referred to as "the noble train of artillery".  Six weeks later, after crossing mountains and rivers and battling snowdrifts the cannon reached Cambridge.  Today, you can follow Knox's epic journey through the plaques along the Henry Knox Trail, installed in 1926 on the 150th anniversary.

The cannon did bring an end the British occupation.  In March, Washington ordered the cannon secretly installed on Dorchester Heights within gun range of the harbor and town.  The British commander quickly realized his position was untenable and, on March 17, 1776, evacuated Boston, giving Suffolk County (containing the City of Boston) the excuse in 1938 to declare St Patrick's Day (oops . . . meant to write Evacuation Day), an official holiday.

Henry Knox went on to a distinguished career, becoming a Brigadier General, commanding the Continental Army's artillery and serving alongside Washington until the end of the war.  Knox commanded the troops who entered New York City when the British evacuated it as the last act of the war on November 21, 1783.  Knox served from 1789 to 1795 as the first Secretary of War under the new government established by the Constitution and died in 1806.

They All Laughed

They all laughed at Christopher Columbus
When he said the world was round
They all laughed when Edison recorded sound

Music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin.  Composed for the 1937 film Shall We Dance starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.  This version sung by the mellifluous Ella Fitzgerald.

Ballad Of A Thin Man

. . . in which THC is Mr Jones

You have many contacts
Among the lumberjacks
To get you facts
When someone attacks your imagination
But nobody has any respect
Anyway they already expect you
To all give a check
To tax-deductible charity organizations.
You've been with the professors
And they've all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have
Discussed lepers and crooks
You've been through all of
F. Scott Fitzgerald's books
You're very well read
It's well known.

But something is happening here
And you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones ?