Welcome to the Atelier
Album of the Day: Monday August 25, 2025
Shankar
Who’s to Know (1980)
Who's to Know is the second studio album by violinist Shankar, recorded in November 1980 and released on ECM the following year. The trio features percussionists Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman and Zakir Hussain.
Ragam Tanam Pallavi
Ananda Nadamadum Tillai Sankara
Feature Presentation: Monday August 25, 2025
A Fistful of Dollars
(1964)
This is the story about a mysterious drifter - a man with no name, which is either an alias or a branding issue, and is also what I used to call my uncle after the court order. This poncho-wearing stranger is about justice, deception, and how much you can accomplish with five bullets, a bulletproof vest, and a really strong jawline. As he struts into a town, with no building codes, he is torn apart by two feuding families: the Baxters and the Rojos - both are criminal organizations with the strategic intelligence of two chipmunks fighting over a flashlight. With more squinting than a solar eclipse in Albuquerque, our near sighted loner decides to go “undercover” and manipulate both gangs against each other for profit, ending up with burning houses, elaborate fake corpses, or beating up fifteen guys in one room using just a matchstick and wounded pride. This film has all the western tropes of gunplay, cigar chomping, dramatic music stings, and a whole subplot involving a kidnapped woman that somehow adds emotional depth and gives our antihero a conscience. In the process, he rescues a hostage, burns down a house, fakes multiple deaths, survives a brutal beating, and still finds time to smoke cigars with the casual cool of a man who’s never read a health warning, just in time to destroy the town he didn’t technically save.
Directed by Boris Sagal
Written by Adriano Bolzoni, Mark Lowell, Víctor Andrés Catena
Staring
Clint Eastwood as Joe
Marianne Koch as Marisol
Gian Maria Volontè as Ramón Rojo
Midnight Movie: Saturday August 23, 2025
Tales from the Hood
1995
What we have here is not your ordinary trip to the morgue—though, to be fair, most morgues don’t come with a smooth-talking funeral director offering story time. Tales From the Hood is four cautionary tales, wrapped up in one coffin, and if you’re squeamish about blood, violence, or politicians getting what’s coming to them, you might want to stick to Sesame Street. First, a crooked cop learns that planting evidence and using excessive force can come back to haunt you - literally. Then, a boy with crayons discovers monsters don’t just live under the bed; sometimes they sit at the dinner table. After that, a violent gangster gets sentenced to the worst rehabilitation program in history - though it does come with free electroshock treatments. And finally, a racist politician finds out that running against equality and civil rights is a dangerous platform… especially when hundreds of vengeful dolls are part of the electorate. In the end, the three thugs who came looking for drugs in the funeral home realize they’re not in for a deal - they’re in for judgment. And the funeral director? He’s not your friendly neighborhood undertaker - he’s running a much hotter business down below. Tales From the Hood is part horror, part social lesson, and part advertisement for why you should always treat people with decency. Also, why you should never accept a tour of a funeral home from a man who laughs that much at his own jokes.
Directed by Rusty Cundieff
Written by Rusty Cundieff, Darin Scott
Staring
Clarence Williams III as Mr. Simms
Joe Torry as Stack
De'aundre Bonds as Ball
Drink me: Thursty Thursday August 21, 2025
Grapes of Wrath
A sophisticated musky grape cocktail
cognac, amaro, sweet vermouth, grape jelly, and bitters
Alchemy: Sunday August 23, 2025
Escape Plan Roasted Red Pepper Ragu Sauce
Alright, here’s the situation: A roasted red pepper ragu sauce, bright, smoky, and slightly sweet - the kind of sauce that makes spaghetti feel like it’s in on a secret. Now, normally I use it on pasta, maybe a garlic bread or two. But it can also double as a tactical culinary device.
If you have prison escape plans, or other highly sensitive documents, definitely classified, and the guards were closing in faster than a speeding lunch cart - smothered the papers in the ragu. They disappeared under a glorious layer of sauce, tomato and red pepper hiding everything like a professional. One bite, and suddenly the plans will be in your stomach, safe from prying eyes, allowing you to get back to undercover work for Police Squad.
Alchemy: Saturday August 16, 2025
Curly’s S’more Ice Cream Sandwiches
The perfect ice cream desert to go with your late summer cookout. Ira and Barry agree, whether it’s franks and beans or grilled sea bass and asparagus - this is the ice cream to pair. Woof!
Book of the Month: August 2025
The Daily Bugle, November 5, 1982 — Special Edition
"MUTANTS IN THE CROSSHAIRS”
TRUTH BEHIND Stryker’s CRUSADE
By Eddie Brock, Daily Bugle Staff Writer
In a chilling display of zealotry masked as faith, Reverend William Stryker—former military man turned televangelist—stands at the center of a rising wave of anti-mutant violence. Under the banner of his so-called “ministry,” Stryker has unleashed a campaign that’s part sermon, part witch hunt, and entirely dangerous.
Sources confirm that Stryker’s private forces—armed, trained, and disturbingly devout—were behind a series of coordinated abductions and attacks on known mutant civilians. His goal? Nothing short of genocide, carried out under the guise of "divine cleansing." This isn't a fringe movement…
X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills
by Chris Claremont, Paul Smith, Brent Anderson, Frank Miller