THAT was one dangerous job.
[Found here.]
Advertisements
Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Saturday Matinee – Bert The Turtle, Time for Sushi & Jaco Pastorious
Saturday, 22 July 2017
Bert The Turtle showed children how to survive a nuclear attack – assuming they’re far enough away from Ground Zero to have time to react. The film was shown in schools from 1952 into the 1990s.
David Lewandowski‘s “Time for Sushi” (2017) is pure disturbed weirdness. (His 2013 vid “Late For Meeting” is a classic.)
The late Jaco Pastorius was one of the greatest jazz-funk fretless bass players in modern times, IMO. [Video h/t TITH]
Have a great weekend, folks. We’ll do something just as fun tomorrow.
Independence Day: “Let despots remember…”
Tuesday, 4 July 2017
John Philip Sousa‘s sheet music for “The Stars and Stripes Forever! March” was first published in 1894, and his band recorded it in 1901. Check it out:
[Free audio download of Sousa’s recording here. Wanna see the Conductor’s Sheet Music? Click here.]
It’s been a century and a quarter yet it’s still one of the most recognizable marches in the world, especially around July 4th. An Act of Congress adopted it as the National March of the USA… in 1987. What I didn’t know is that Sousa penned lyrics for his timeless classic, and here is the last refrain:
“Hurrah for the flag of the free!
May it wave as our standard forever;
The gem of the land and the sea,
The ban-ner of the right.
Let despots remember the day,
When our fathers with mighty endeavor,
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray,
That by their might and by their right
It waves forever.”
Note that The Founding Fathers were all British citizens, right up until the Declaration of Independence. If you’ve never read it, read it; and if you’ve read it, read it again. Then read the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. Out loud.
Teach your kids and grandchilluns the meaning and importance of Independence Day, because nobody else will. Tell them how pissed off the colonists were, and why, and then tell them what they eventually did about it. Then grill a buncha hot dogs and hamburgers, take ’em to a local fireworks show and have a great Independence Day Celebration. See ya there!
Gris Gris Gumbo Ya Ya Hot Links
Sunday, 25 June 2017
The Human Genome is 80% cow. It’s also 60% fruit fly.
That explains a lot.
A 5 year-old boy witnessed Lincoln’s assassination.
Justice for Damone Ramone is long overdue. Johnny, Joey, Tommy, DeeDee and Marky never gave their sibling the credit he deserved.
Gitcha some Gris Gris Gumbo Ya Ya. “I’ll kill all y’all’s ills.”
Now about those Trump Lies. They’re all lies.
Top image is a sculpture entitled Malinche by Jimmie Durham.
Born ca.1500AD, La Malinche (also known as Doña Marina) was a female Nahua from the Tobasco region of Mexico. Enslaved by the Chontal Maya, she was given to the Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés in 1519. She was reported to be a hottie, was savvy enough to cozy up to Cortés, became his translator and mistress, and aided the Spaniards in defeating the Aztecs. She’s now reviled as a traitor… to those who enslaved HER.
D-Day 6 June 1944: Operation Overlord
Tuesday, 6 June 2017“There are moments in a nation’s history when its future course is decided by a chosen few who walked bravely into the valley of the shadow of death.”
–US Army General Curtis M. Scaparrotti, during a wreath-laying ceremony at the Iron Mike Memorial, Sainte-Mere-Eglise, France
4 June 2017.
D-Day commemoration: “We will never forget our heroes” U.S., German and French dignitaries salute as “Taps” is played during an “Iron Mike” wreath-laying ceremony in Sainte-Mere-Eglise, France, June 4, 2017. The ceremony commemorated the 73rd anniversary of the D-Day landings. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Tamika Dillard
[Image and quote from here.]
Cliffside Path, China
Tuesday, 30 May 2017
As wonderful as Chinese tea is, it is definitely not something you’d closely associate with exhilaration, adrenaline and the fear of death. Mt. Huashan in China, however, manages to bring all of these things together by featuring a death-defying cliff-side mountain climb that brings daring visitors to a tea house 2,160 m (7,087 ft) up on the mountain’s southern peak.
Mt. Huashan has been a place of religious importance since at least the 2nd century BCE, when a Daoist temple was established at its base. Since then, pilgrims, monks and nuns have inhabited the mountain and the surrounding area. A network of dangerous and precipitous trails allows them to access the mountain’s five summits, each of which has a religious structure like the tea house on the southern summit. Together, these five summits form the points of a flower shape.
I don’t do heights very well – I get a visceral reaction when I’m too close to the edge – and this insane video spooked me just by watching it.
John Logie Baird’s Contribution To The World: The 1926 Televisor
Wednesday, 10 May 2017
The eerie image … shows the first image to ever be transmitted onto television. The year was 1926, and Scottish inventor John Logie Baird had successfully broadcast his business partner’s face through an apparatus he dubbed “the televisor”, which was of course the early version of all television sets today.
I’m guessing that’s a still from a 16mm test film, or perhaps it wasn’t animated at all and it was just a flickering image transmitted to a small (3.5″ x 2″) video display.
Another source includes this commentary:
One staff member quoted [the Editor of the London Daily Press] as saying: “For God’s sake, go down to the reception and get rid of a lunatic who’s down there. He says he’s got a machine for seeing by wireless. Watch him – he may have a razor on him.”
Following his demonstration in 1926, Baird developed colour TV and brought out the world’s first mass produced television set in 1929.
