Tag: books

New Titles Now Available on Public Domain Day 2026

Boop Oop A Doop

As every year turns into a new one so too do many creative properties enter the public domain on what’s called Public Domain Day. Books, films, sound recordings, and even cartoon characters worm their way out from under U.S. copyright protection and become free to copy, share and repurpose.

Public Domain Day 2026 MontageCC-BY.

This year’s crop includes William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, the first four Nancy Drew books, Agatha Christie’s The Murder at the Vicarage. and the movies All Quiet On The Western Front, Animal Crackers, and The Blue Angel among others. Edna Ferber’s book Cimarron and the Academy Award winning film adaptation of it also became available. Songs like I Got Rhythm, I’ve Got a Crush On You, and Embraceable You are a few of the tunes.  Sound recordings now available are from 1925, while other categories are from 1930.

The Duke University Center for the Study of the Public Domain chronicles what’s newly available in the public domain each year and you can see fuller descriptions here.

There are some catches to some of the releases, especially as regards to cartoon characters. The original versions, sometimes with different names and likenesses than they have later been associated with are what are now available, while later more familiar iterations remain under copyright. Betty Boop is one such example grabbing the headlines this year, but that character looked quite different in its original characterization as a dog with floppy ears than what most now recall.  See the center of the image above to show the difference and see the original character in the video below.

 

(Image from Duke University Center for the Study of Public Domain)

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

My Viewing and Reading Picks for 2025

Another year of complex viewing and reading

Another year comes to an end. A new one gets ready to begin. 2025 felt less complex than 2024. Lines weren’t as blurry with one exception that I’ll get to later. In a year when the rush to redefine and compete for the lowest common denominator felt like a three-legged sack race over broken glass, complexity again drew my attention and stuck with me. There’s a great leveling happening, whether intentional or not. But as long as we can advertise against whatever the content is, it seems to matter less and less what the content is or how it’s made.

When it comes to viewing entertainment it was a year when the quality line between movies and streaming TV blurred even more as excellent series work competing with the big screen for some of my favorite viewing. The Pitt and Adolescence were two of the finest things I watched this year.

There are a number of titles in these lists that would qualify for what is being called Resistance Cinema. Each one is deserving of inclusion in that list for immediacy. Any lasting impact will only be determined with the passage of time and all of what we’re currently resisting either cements or cracks.

I don’t believe in “best of” lists. There’s good stuff being created amidst all of the mediocrity and my judgement on what’s good is probably not yours. I pick what attracts and holds my attention. I also don’t see or read everything and the holiday release schedule geared to coming in under the wire for awards recognition is a silly game for insiders and not for me. There also may be a title or two that I didn’t catch until 2025 even though it was released in previous years. Goodness knows there are books waiting to be read.

If there’s a link with a title, I took the time to write about it. I should have done that more. So here’s a list in no particular ranking order of what I found most intriguing throughout the year.

Movies
Streaming TV
Books
  • 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin
  • The Mission by Time Weiner
  • Apple In China by Patrick McGee
  • The Director by Daniel Kehlmann

Have a Happy New Year!

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Finishing Ken Burns’ The American Revolution

The series is complete. As a nation the question remains open.

We completed watching Ken Burn’s excellent The American Revolution this week. Thank goodness for streaming, allowing us to view it on our schedule. Two spoiler alerts. First, we won the war. Second, we’re still struggling with many of the differences that made the formation (and perhaps the continuation) of what would become the Untied States such a close thing. 

 The series is excellent and I highly recommend it. Burns and his team do their expected thorough job of researching and producing the documentary. We’re lucky there were so many letters written by those beneath the status of the cast of characters most of us could identify at a glance, because that material provides much of the content and texture inside the frame. 

The production does it’s job so well that my hunch is some will come away learning things they never knew about a period of our history we’ve wrapped in so many myths it would keep troops at Valley Forge warm. I would also guess that in today’s political and social climate there will be far too many who tune out or don’t tune in because they prefer the comfort of the mythology. 

Which is a damned shame. As I said in an earlier post about the series:

I’m not hearing things differently, but I’m hearing how folks can take their own meaning out of many of the things written and said during that period that led to this country’s founding. History may indeed rhyme, but it also echoes. Often in strange ways.

If you have followed any of Burns’ work you know his approach to American history is to tell the parts of stories we leave out of the picture. I grew up in a part of the country where you could turn your head left or right, spit, and hit the history of the American Revolution or the Civil War. I count myself lucky that my 10th grade history teacher kept reminding us that there was so much more to discover about our past than he had the time to teach us, planting a seed of curiosity that continues to grow inside of me to this day decades later. 

Ken Burns and his team continue to keep that curiosity growing. We should all be grateful and unafraid that they do so.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

Art matters. If you listen.

It’s another Sunday in this insane world, so it’s time for some Sunday Morning Reading. It won’t cure what ails you, or the world. But there are those who are listening. Listen as you read.

Roman kraft _Zua2hyvTBk unsplash 1.

Aren’t You Tired Of Feeling Insane All The Time? Marie Le Conte asks that question. I’m not sure anyone can plug the hole in that boat, but acknowledging that we’re sinking is the first step.

David Todd McCarty tackles The Lost Art of Listening.

NatashaMH recently launched an exhibition of her art. Launching anything can take life out of you, launching any display of art exacts even more of the soul than it does the physical being. But as she says in The Social Life of Art, “art demands resilience, and resilience demands a sense of humor.”

I wrote a bit this week about what Mark Leydorf has to say about The Rise of Resistance Cinema In The Era of Trump. It’s worth highlighting his piece again here.

I’ve been watching the Apple TV series Pluribus with great curiosity. If nothing else, the show echoes Mr. McCarty’s opening to his piece linked above. (Warning. Don’t watch the show with my wife.) Dani Di Placido thinks he’s got it all figured out in What Is ‘Pluribus’ Really About?  Perhaps he does. I’m not so sure. I’m also not sure the show’s success or failure relies on figuring it out in the end.

I’ve been linking to some of the goings on at The Kennedy Center under this corrupt administration. Trust me when I say what’s happening there is causing shock waves across board rooms in arts institutions across the country as everyone looks to uncertain and unknown futures with no script to follow. It’s affecting the art. It’s affecting the business of art. It will affect the art in ways we can’t begin to imagine. Janay Kingsberry examines how Senate Democrats Are Investigating Kennedy Center’s Deals And Spending. 

Most of the links this week touch on the arts in one way or the other. In a way this tech topic does as well, given that so many want to turn emoji’s into some form of art. Benji Edwards examines the origins of this move back to hieroglyphics with the piece, In 1982, A Physics Gone Wrong Sparked The Invention Of The Emoticon. Art by accident often is the art that sticks.

(Image by Roman Kraft on Unsplash)

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Politics, the arts, a little snow, and the end of an era

It’s a Sunday and Fall is homing in on Winter as the first snow of the season hits Chicago this morning. Perfect time for a little Sunday Morning Reading featuring some interesting stories about the arts, AI, and home.

As the first flakes of this winter of discontent fall, two interesting reads highlight some of the chaos the art-less U.S administration is inflicting on the American arts scene, specifically The Kennedy Center. Shawn McCreesh takes a look at the damage being done in The Kennedy Center Crackup.

Meanwhile, Charlotte Higgins reports that the Washington National Opera May Move Out Of The Kennedy Center Due to Trump ‘Takeover.’ I’m here to tell you that while what’s happening on the banks of the Potomac may feel very inside the beltway, the repercussions are being felt in the boardrooms of arts organizations across the country.

The above, like most of our news of late, is certainly not something to laugh at. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t find ways to laugh at the incompetent, ignorant and dangerous players wreaking havoc in their wake. Laughter gets under their all too thin skins, no matter how made up or stretched too tight by surgery. Mike Monteiro offers up How To Point At Fascists And Laugh.

NatashaMH, far too young to worry about being old, takes a look at creating art as she nears the mid-century mark in I Don’t Paint For Your Sofa. Youngsters these days.

Art and politics might be an unholy mix in dangerous times like these, but there’s another foul concoction brewing. Adam Willems points to An ex-Intel CEO’s Mission To Build A Christian AI: ‘Hasten The Coming of Christ’s Return.’ If you ask me these folks wishing for these kind of end times have really missed the points. All of them.

Continuing on the AI front there seems to be a bit of weakening in the walls of what most concede is an economic bubble. The cliché is that bubbles pop. Those that don’t, just disappear as they float away. Ben Thompson takes a look at what happens in either case in The Benefits of Bubbles. 

Home is where hearts are and often places you can’t return back to. I’ve lived both. Chris Andrei is Searching For The Elusive Feeling Of Home.

With the weather changing and snowflakes falling out my window, there’s a passage of time marker about to be set. The Farmers’ Almanac is about to shut down. Growing up in rural America there were only two publications that everyone I knew received in the mail. It was always a big deal in our house when my dad, who was the postmaster, brought those home. The Sears Catalog and The Farmer’s Almanac. The Sears Catalog is long gone. The 2026 edition of the latter will be its last. Grace Snelling takes a look back and ahead in After More Than 200 Years, The Farmers’ Almanac Is Shutting Down For Good. 

Returning to where this week’s column began, the arts, Jack Rodolico’s The Blue Book Burglar examines how New York’s once vaunted Social Register, was not only a destination that social climbers desired to be included in, but was also a hit list for the country’s hardest working art thief. I just don’t understand how the current thieves doing today’s pillaging have it so damn easy.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Everything you can imagine is different, yet it’s the same.

It’s a Sunday. It’s a Sunday in Chicago. The Cubs lost. (Not surprising.) The Trump regime continues its horrendous snatch and grab policies all over the city (Increasingly not surprising but still terrifying.) Leaves are falling, but somehow they feel dirtier and without the bursts of color we’re used to seeing beforehand. And the world marches on. Time for a little Sunday Morning Reading. 

Neil Steinberg wrote a terrific piece about Chicago amidst all that’s going on called What A Lovely Day in Chicago. It’s a love letter. It’s an homage. It’s a snapshot. As he puts it “We need to remember that this is oppression for oppression’s sake, a practice built on lies. The city is fine.” That’s the odd thing. The city is fine. It’s the oppression that’s not.

Timothy Burke’s The News: Reign of Error expands on a piece by Henry Farrell that says that institutions and communities need to coordinate their resistance to Trump. As Burke puts it one of the obstacles is that “the closer that institutions get to one another in character and mission, and the less necessary it is to be competitive, the more that they are overwhelmed by the narcissism of small differences.” It’s an excellent dissection that reveals why some in higher places of different sectors might be holding their tongues while their mouths are agape at what’s going on around us.

Empywheel thinks The Nativists Are Getting Restless: How The Comey Prosecution May Backfire. I’m not sure it matters in the end if the point is do damage as loudly as possible.

David Todd McCarty asks the question Is Your Imagination Robbing You of Real Experiences? Cogito, ergo sum?

I wrote a play years ago about John Brown and Harpers Ferry, one of those moments in American history that we seem to want to forget, yet never goes away. Robert S. Levine tells us Why Donald Trump Wants To Erase John Brown’s Fiery Abolitionist Legacy (and Why He Will Fail.)

There was so much craziness about the Nobel Peace Prize this year given, well you know why. So much so that many of the other awards were overlooked. The Nobel Prize for Literature went to Hungarian author Lázló Krasznahorkai. I have several acquaintances who adore his work and were tremendously excited. I did some reading on Krasznahorkai and stumbled up on this 2011 piece by James Wood called Madness and Civilization about the author. Worth your while.

On the Artificial Intelligence beat, Sora is the latest thing everyone has an immediate love/hate relationship with. But this isn’t about that. Sarah Perez says It’s Not Too Late For Apple To Get AI Right. Frankly, I think it’s too late for any of these companies to get it right, unless “right” is about winning the con game.

Resting my case on that last statement, Alexandra Jones looks into the connections folks can’t make in real life and are turning to AI for in ‘I Realized I’d Been ChatGPT-ed Into Bed’: How ‘Chatfishing Made Finding Love On Dating Apps Even Weirder.”

And as Autumn continues its march, New Englanders Are Fed Up With Leaf-Peeping Tourists Ruining Their Fall, so says Jared Mitovitch.

(Image is a photo I took last Fall)

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Winter is coming. Or is it here?

It’s a Sunday and that means it’s time for Sunday Morning Reading. Fall is beginning its march towards Winter, but the chill in the unusually warm Chicago temperatures this weekend aren’t weather related. Some of that is reflected in today’s selections as well as other topics, some that feed the soul, while others fuel the fires.

Shutterstock 632908457.

It’s tough to watch what’s going on in the streets of some of our cities and towns, and there’s no denying what Ian F. Blair points out That The United Police State of America Has Arrived.

Another Ian, this time Ian Dunt, discusses The Politics of Drawing a Moral Line, sketching a parallel between events in Britain and the Ezra Klein interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates. By the way, I encourage you to listen to that interview. It’s not easy, but nothing is these days.

Chicago’s Neil Steinberg comments that Next, Dyeing the River Green Will Be Cast As A Terrorist Act. I don’t think he’s far off.

On the Artificial Intelligence front, what was bound to happen happened when OpenAI released Sora, its tool for creating short movies, or better yet (worse yet?) putting yourself into one. That followed quickly on the heels of the uproar over the creation of Tilly Norwood, an AI actress created out of bits and bytes, and her creator seeking talent agent representation. Hollywood producers and bean counters are thirsting over better bottom lines ahead. Maureen Dowd has an interesting look at When A.I. Came For Hollywood.

Meanwhile one of the tech overlords, Peter Thiel, is obsessed with the antichrist and thinks tech is the only way to keep whatever that is from destroying us all. Laura Bullard takes a look at what’s behind Thiel’s obsession. Don’t be surprised at where Thiel drew some of his inspiration in The Real States, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession. 

Continuing on the Artificial Intelligence beat, Bullsh*t Warning from John Warner, examines how to think about writing in the age of AI.

Mathew Ingram asks So What’s So Great About Reading Books? 

And to wrap things up this week, take a look at Christopher Michael Hefner’s On Letting Go Of The Idea Of The Tortured Artist. 

I included the image above from Fotgraf Petrova Olga on Shutterstock of an empty playground because I noticed this week that Chicago’s parks and playgrounds are empty of the laughter and life we usually experience due to ICE activity throughout the city before Winter begins to set in. There’s a different chill in the air this Fall.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Back home from travels. Still sharing stuff that warrants attention.

Back home after a couple of weeks on the road. Good times. Crazy times. Nevertheless, it’s Sunday and there’s Sunday Morning Reading to share.

Shutterstock 1626610513.

“Life isn’t just about knowing what you should do, or having the resources to do it, it’s about following through.” So says, John Burn-Murdoch in his piece The Troubling Decline In Conscientiousness. I agree there’s a decline. I’m not so sure the remedy is as simple as it sounds.

The AI race is continuing whether we want it to or not. Apparently there’s now a way to create your own TV show if you want to keep diving deeper into your own delusions. Nina Metz has a great piece on this intrusion into the entertainment industry saying After A Long Day, The Last Thing I Want Is To Tell GenAI To Create a TV Show For Me To Watch.

In Notes From The Circus, Mike Brock takes a look at The Faux Intellectuals of Silicon Valley. “When oligarchs treat human civilization as thought experiments while sophisticated courtiers provide intellectual cover, democratic discourse itself becomes impossible.” Nailed it.

I don’t know about you, but my handwriting went downhill mere minutes after I was no longer graded on it. So it has always sucked. So, I’m not sure if NatashaMH’s latest applies in my case, but she is taking a look at what happens When The Handwriting Changes, suggesting that the body keeps score and so does the pen. Damn, if I’d know there was score keeping…

Mathew Ingram takes a look at age gating, the move afoot to protect kids from the perils of the Internet in The UK’s Well-Meaning Online Safety Law Is A Dumpster Fire. American dumpsters won’t be far behind, because we like to hide from the things we think are bad, pretending we’ve solved the problem, instead of addressing the problem.

Matthew Wolfe tells a great story about Chicago and America’s first black detective, who had a few secrets of his own in The Talented Mr. Bruseaux.

The turmoil among Apple users continues to roil for lots of reasons. Certainly this week’s obsequious bending of the knee by Tim Cook has added more to it. I wrote a bit about that here. I like John Gruber’s take on the issue in Gold, Frankincense, and Silicon. 

(Image from OlegRi on Shutterstock)

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Notice the good things amidst the bad.

It’s been a week. But I repeat myself. These days it seems like that’s always the case. Superman’s back. (Again.) So too are this season’s butterflies. Everything circles back. Today’s Sunday Morning Reading is a potpourri of topics of interest that stroke a number of chords, some familiar, some not so, some good, some not so. Either way, enjoy.

Photo 1693722379283 fd3627e18cea.

In That Was Good, Merlin Mann says that smart people always find the best reasons for being very sad. I can relate. He suggests the cure for that might be noticing some good things. Even the small ones. Check it out. It’s a good thing.

This week featured the news revisiting the subject matter of several plays I’ve written or directed in the past. One of those, Inherit the Wind, the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, is a semi-fictional retelling of the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee. This year marks the 100th year anniversary of that trial. Neil Steinberg has a terrific piece, both commemorating and commiserating. Given how short a distance we’ve traveled in this circle we keep walking in. Check out 100 Years Ago, The Scopes Trial Gripped The Nation, And Here We Go Again.

Twice a week on social media I post “This is your now weekly, and continuing reminder that we’re still fighting the Civil War.” Frankly, I don’t see it any other way for reasons I shouldn’t have to explain. I don’t often post interviews in this column, but I’m making an exception this week to post Amita Sharma’s interview with political scientist Barbara Walter who has helped forecast civil wars in other countries. Take a look at San Diego Political Expert Details Steps That Could Lead To US Civil War.

I blow hot and cold on Tom Nichols’ political commentary. I very much like his piece Damn You All To Hell! Find out his thoughts on how Hollywood taught a generation to fear nuclear catastrophe. It might have worked with that horror. Funny, yet sad, how it hasn’t worked with all of the goings on currently.

History is indeed always an incomplete picture that’s always evolving and struggling to take hold. In Texas Man’s Fight To Move A Lynching Marker Sparks New Battle For Truth, Christina Carrega pinpoints one of those moments of evolution.

Mathew Ingram says We Shouldn’t Blame AI For The Stupid Things That People Do. I agree. AI is the prime example.

Chris Castle takes on a piece of the Section 230 argument, thinking that a new theory of liability is emerging, grounded not in speech, but in conduct. Give a look at The Duty Comes From The Data: Rethinking Platform Liability In The Age of Algorithmic Harm. 

And to round out the circle this week, take a look at David Sparks’ A Remarkable, Unremarkable Thing. Don’t let the small things go unnoticed.

(Image from Anya Chernik on Unsplash)

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Mixed feelings and mixed emotions on a Summer Sunday by the lake.

The 4th of July weekend is wrapping up in the U.S. and many are having mixed feelings this year. Today’s edition of Sunday Morning Reading will feature some excellent writing on some of those mixed feelings in addition to some interesting reads on familiar topics from familiar writers, and some not so familiar. Enjoy.

Giuseppe argenziano J04GmVkKSLQ unsplash.

First up, let’s take a look at Elizabeth Lopatto’s view on the state of things in the states in her post The American System of Democracy Has Crashed. Excellent. Should be required reading.

Neil Steinberg also has thoughts well worth your time in He’s baaaaaaack.

Jack Hopkins gives us The 4th of July: What We Were Meant to Celebrate — and How We’re Failing It. Again, worth a read as we close out the long holiday weekend and this section of today’s Sunday Morning Reading.

Now for some catching up on some links I’ve delayed too long in sharing.

First up is The Chosen Few and the Cost of Global Silence from NatashaMH. History repeats. All the damn time. As she also demonstrates in this piece The Cruelty of Indifference.

Relative youngster, David Todd McCarty writes about aging in When I Am Old.

Writers are having trouble finding the right fit when it comes to how to make a living. Matthew Ingram tells us Why Substack Shouldn’t Be The Future of Online Publishing. We

Chuck Wendig argues about and bemoans the loss of downtime in his writing process given all that’s happening around us in A Small But Vital Thing, Taken.

While writers search for new ways and new homes, Joshua Rothman wonders What’s Happening To Reading?

Never Forgive Them is a piece from Edward Zitron from December 2024 that seems relevant again in more ways than it was intended then.

Composer and poet Stan Stewart recently had his computer die on him. He writes about what he lost and found in Of Dead Computers and Really Living.

Matteo Wong says The Entire Internet Is Reverting to Beta. Sure everything is a janky work in progress, certainly in the janky days of AI. But I think that’s how those who think they run the joint like running the joint.

And to close out this week, take a good look at this wonderful long read from Eric Konigsberg from all the way back in 2001, entitled My Uncle The Hit Man.

Image from Giuseppe Argenziano on Unsplash.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.