How do you know when you’ve got a problem with bibliophilia?
One clue is when you start buying bibliographies.
More hoplobibliophilia.
June 8th, 2020Obit watch: June 8, 2020.
June 8th, 2020Kurt Thomas, gymnast.
He competed in the 1976 Olympics, but didn’t win any medals. He won a gold medal at the world championships in 1978: he was the first American to do so.
He was a favorite to medal in the 1980 Olympics, but we all know what happened there.
He also starred in the 1985 film, “Gymkata“, a fact the NYT curiously omits from their coverage.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 69
June 7th, 2020Science Sunday!
I’m drawing pretty heavily on AT&T/Bell System stuff, but they do have some of the best science videos on YouTube. Not just about phone stuff, either.
For example, lasers.
From 1969, “Lasers Unlimited”. If you want to skip the introduction, fast forward to about 2:25.
Bonus video #1, since that one was short: a 1978 interview with Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias, right after their Nobel Prize was announced.
If you don’t know the story, Penzias and Wilson were Bell Labs employees working on microwave receivers, specifically ultra-sensitive and cryogenically cooled ones. Since they were trying to pick up really really weak signals (bounced off Echo balloons), they eliminated all the noise they could from their equipment. But there was still some noise that persisted and that they couldn’t find a source for. Finally, and with the help of some astronomers, they figured out that what they were hearing was the cosmic microwave background radiation, which is taken to be evidence in favor of the Big Bang theory. Penzias and Wilson won the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery. (It was shared with Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, who was awarded the prize for unrelated work on low-temperature physics.)
I know it’s talking heads, but I think the Penzias and Wilson story is a great one. You go chasing faint radio signals, you come back with one of the keys to the universe. How cool is that?
(Apparently, their receiver was quite cool. Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Try the veal and remember to tip your waitress.)
Bonus video #2: This one is equally short, and silent: “A Computer Technique For the Production of Animated Movies”. This is how computer animation was done…in 1964.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 68
June 6th, 2020Since it is June 6th, I thought I’d put up some D-Day related videos from the National Archives.
“D-Day to Germany”.
Bonus #1: “D-Day to D Plus 3”.
Bonus #2: “Normandy, The Airborne Invasion of Fortress Europe”.
Quick random notes.
June 5th, 2020Two by way of Hacker News:
Akira Kurosawa’s storyboards. Oh, wait, I’m sorry: Akira Kurosawa’s painted storyboards.
(They keep saying “hand-painted storyboards”. As opposed to what: machine painted? Foot painted?)
The early history of computer chess, including the first national computer chess tournament.
I’m fascinated by computer chess, so I would probably have posted this anyway. Interestingly, though, this article also features (and quotes) an unexpected appearance by a now very prominent science fiction and fantasy writer, who at the time had recently graduated from Northwestern University and was interested in both computers and chess.
Obit watch: June 5, 2020.
June 5th, 2020Bruce Jay Friedman, noted writer.
He also wrote the screenplays for “Splash” and “Stir Crazy”, and the works that were turned into “The Lonely Guy” and “The Heartbreak Kid”.
For the historical record: Hutton Gibson, Mel Gibson’s father.
Hutton Gibson belonged to a splinter group of Catholics who reject the reforms of the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965, known as Vatican II. These traditionalists seek to preserve centuries-old orthodoxy, especially the Tridentine Mass, the Latin Mass established in the 16th century. They operate their own chapels, schools and clerical orders apart from the Vatican and in opposition to it.
But even among these outsiders, Mr. Gibson, who had early in life attended a seminary before dropping out, was extreme in his views. He denied the legitimacy of John Paul II as pope, once calling him a “Koran Kisser,” and said Vatican II had been “a Masonic plot backed by the Jews.” He called Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a traditionalist leader until his death in 1991, a “compromiser.” Mr. Gibson earned the nickname “Pope Gibson” for his outspoken, dogmatic opinions on faith.
After he was expelled from a conservative group in Australia, where he had moved with his family from New York State in 1968, Mr. Gibson formed his own, Alliance for Catholic Tradition. Beginning in 1977, he disseminated his ultra-Orthodox views in a newsletter, “The War Is Now!,” and through self-published books, including “Is the Pope Catholic?” (1978) and “The Enemy is Here!” (1994). The Wisconsin Historical Society library and archives holds Mr. Gibson’s published works among its extensive collection of religious publications.
…
In 2003, as Mel Gibson was directing “The Passion of the Christ,” his film about the crucifixion, Hutton Gibson gave an interview to The New York Times laced with comments about conspiracy theories. The planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, had been remote-controlled, he claimed (without saying by whom). The number of Jews killed in the Holocaust was wildly inflated, he went on.
“Go and ask an undertaker or the guy who operates the crematorium what it takes to get rid of a dead body,” Mr. Gibson said. “It takes one liter of petrol and 20 minutes. Now, six million?”
In a radio interview a week before the February 2004 release of “The Passion,” Mr. Gibson went further, saying of the Holocaust, “It’s all — maybe not all fiction — but most of it is.” The comments added to an already simmering controversy that the film was anti-Semitic; the chairmen of two major studios told The Times that they wouldn’t work with Mel Gibson in the future.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 67
June 5th, 2020This is another “no real theme” day, just a couple of things that came up in my recommendations that I thought were diverting.
“The White House: Past and Present”, one of those old Coronet films from the 1960s that you may remember from school (if you were a certain age). I don’t recall ever seeing this one, personally…
Bonus video: “Behind the Ticker Tape”, a 1957 film about the American Stock Exchange (now the NYSE American). If you ever wondered what stock trading was like in the 1950s…
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 66
June 4th, 2020I haven’t put up any Canadian content (CanCon) in a while, so let’s fix that today. Plus: explosives!
“Handle With Care”, a 1943 documentary about TNT production during the war.
Bonus video #1: “Birth of a Giant”. From 1957, about the construction of the Canadair Argus, a massive Canadian built anti-submarine aircraft.
Bonus video #2: This is a little longer, but at least one reader might enjoy it: “Challenger: An Industrial Romance”, about the design and construction of the Canadair Challenger executive jet. This is also from 1980, so at least you’ve got color. Plus, you know, I kind of like the National Film Board of Canada.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 65
June 3rd, 2020I haven’t thrown FotB RoadRich a bone in a while, so this one is dedicated to him. It combines two! two! two! things in one: planes and Japan!
“So Small My Island”, a 1960s Pan Am promo film for travel to Japan.
Bonus: More Pan Am! From 1959, “Jet Terminal”, about the opening of Terminal 3 (aka “Worldport”) at Idlewild.
Bonus #2: Heh, heh. He said “Idlewild”.
Obit watch: June 3, 2020.
June 3rd, 2020Wes Unseld, NBA center.
There are only two players who have been named MVP and rookie of the year in the same season. The other one is Wilt Chamberlain.
Pat Dye, Auburn football coach.
Elsa Dorfman, photographer. She specialized in taking portraits with the giant 20×24 Polaroid camera, about which I have written previously.
By way of Hacker News (and I don’t think the WSJ link is going to work for many people): Irene Triplett. Ms. Triplett was 90 years old, and was the last person still receiving a Civil War pension.
According to the WallyJ, which I can read but can’t link here, her father (Moses Triplett) started out fighting for the Confederacy, then defected to the Union side in 1863. He married a woman named Elda Hall in 1924, had Irene Triplett in 1930 (he was 83, his wife was 34), and died in 1938 at 92.
Her pension was apparently $73.13 a month, though she received other benefits as a ward of the state. In addition, “…a pair of Civil War buffs visited and sent her money to spend on Dr. Pepper and chewing tobacco, a habit she picked up in the first grade.”
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 64
June 2nd, 2020I believe I promised an exotic destination yesterday. I hope you all have your bags packed, because what could be more exotic than…
…Vietnam?
From 1967, “You In Vietnam”, a Marine Corps training/orientation film for new recruits in country.
Bonus: from 1986, “Combat Leadership: The Ultimate Challenge”.
Lee Marvin shows up at about the three minute mark.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 63
June 1st, 2020Do you like jam?
Do you like Jam Handy?
Do you like soup?
From 1962, “The Ballad of Soup Du Jour”.
Warning: folk music.
And here’s a bonus for those of you who haven’t had enough already, or who are big fans of “The Gallery of Regrettable Food“: “The Magic Shelf”, a 1950s promo film for Campbell’s Soup. In glorious (?) color.
Tomorrow: pack your suitcase for an exotic destination!
Obit watch: June 1, 2020.
June 1st, 2020Yesterday was a big day, but I wanted to give the news time to shake out.
For “Valley Curtain” he strung orange nylon fabric along steel cables over a narrow pass in Rifle, Colo.; a large semicircular opening allowed cars on the state highway below to pass through.
Fierce winds ripped the curtain to shreds two days later, a setback that Christo shrugged off. “I as an artist have done what I set out to do,” he said. “That the curtain no longer exists only makes it more interesting.”
Then came “Running Fence,” a series of white nylon fabric panels that snaked their way over ranchland in Sonoma and Marin counties in Northern California and crossed Highway 101 on their way to the ocean in Bodega Bay.
For “Valley Curtain,” Christo and his lawyer devised the system that made all of his subsequent works possible. For each project a corporation was created, with Jeanne-Claude as director and Christo as a salaried employee. Financing came from the sale of drawings and small models to collectors and museums; Christo never accepted grants or public money. When the art work was taken down, the corporation dissolved itself, having earned zero profit.
…
Even more difficult, politically, was Christo’s plan to wrap the Reichstag in Berlin. The first drawing was made in 1971. For decades thereafter he encountered nothing but resistance from West German officials. But with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, momentum shifted his way, and in 1995 the work was completed.
In between the Pont Neuf and Reichstag Projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude simultaneously placed 1,760 yellow umbrellas in the Tejon Pass, just north of Los Angeles, and 1,340 blue umbrellas on a hillside near Ibaraki, Japan.
“The Umbrellas, Japan-U.S.A.” came to grief when one of the 485-pound umbrellas in California came unmoored in high winds and killed a woman and injured several other people. The two artists ordered the umbrellas in both countries to be taken down immediately. As a Japanese crane operator prepared to remove one of the umbrellas, his crane made contact with a power line, electrocuting him.
Herb Stempel, of quiz show scandal fame, has passed at 93. I’ve written about the quiz show scandal previously, so I won’t recap the whole story here.
Mr. Stempel apparently passed on April 7th, but his death was not confirmed until yesterday. It’s mildly interesting that he passed almost exactly a year after Charles Van Doren.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 62
May 31st, 2020Science Sunday!
You know what else I thought was really cool when I was six years old?
From 1962 and the Bell System, by way of the AT&T Tech Channel, “Telstar”, the story of the satellite’s development.
Bonus science video, also by way of the AT&T Tech Channel, but covering a totally different aspect of science: “The Year They Discovered People”, a 1973 documentary about the Hawthorne Effect.
Obit watch: May 31, 2020.
May 31st, 2020Marge Redmond. She was perhaps most famous as “Sister Jacqueline” on “The Flying Nun”, but she did a fair amount of other TV: “Barnaby Jones”, “The Rockford Files”, “Quincy, M.E.”, “Matlock”, and more. She was also in “The Fortune Cookie”, “Manhattan Murder Mystery”, and “Family Plot”.
She was married to Jack Weston, and they were both good Cleveland people. Apparently, she died in February, but her death was only recently reported.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 61
May 30th, 2020Here’s something a little different and shorter. “Coast Guard Lighthouses”, a film about…Coast Guard lighthouses, as of 1960.
Bonus: since the theme today is “something a little different”, here’s a promo film from the American Radio Relay League, also from the 1960s: “The Ham’s Wide World”. Noted: one of America’s most famous hams, Barry Goldwater (K7UGA and K3UIG), shows up at about 15:40.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 60
May 29th, 2020I do love me some hot Navy action. I also really enjoyed The Hunt For Red October. So:
“Co-ordinated Anti-Submarine Warfare” This is labeled as part 1, but I think the good folks at PeriscopeFilm put parts 1 and 2 together when they uploaded the newly mastered version.
Bonus video: “Tracking the Threat: Anti Submarine Warfare in the Cold War”. This has a 1982 copyright date, which makes it extremely contemporary with Red October.
Obit watch: May 29, 2020.
May 29th, 2020Richard Herd, working actor. He appeared on a minor SF TV show and was a regular on a minor sitcom, but he had a lot of other credits. (Including, interestingly enough, “Capt. Dennis Sheridan” on “T.J. Hooker”. One of the less reputable broadcast networks was running a marathon of that last weekend. Man, it is hard to watch these days.)
Anthony James, another working actor. He was in “Unforgiven” and “In the Heat of the Night” (the movie), also appeared on a minor SF TV show, and had a lot of other credits (“Quincy, M.E.”, the good “Hawaii 5-0”, “Gunsmoke”, “Starsky and Hutch”, “Police Story”, and so on).
By way of Lawrence, Cindy Lou Butler Stevens.
“Cindy Lou who?”
No, Cindy Lou Butler Stevens. She was one of the female leads in the awful “Boggy Creek II: and the Legend Continues…“, and also appeared in “The Town that Dreaded Sundown” and “Grayeagle”.
All three of those were directed by Charles B. Pierce (who also directed “The Legend of Boggy Creek”, the first film in the trilogy). Per Lawrence, Ms. Stevens was married to Mr. Pierce at the time.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 59
May 28th, 2020An assortment today. No unifying theme.
Police videos have been kind of skimpy recently because they haven’t been popping up in my YouTube recommendations. If I narrow the topics down to just “law enforcement”, I get…nothing but “Live PD” clips. Now, I have nothing against “Live PD”: I don’t watch it, because we don’t have cable, but I’ll certainly sit through a YouTube clip. In a private window in my browser, not signed in to YouTube, so why are these clips showing up in my recs? And if people want to watch “Live PD” clips, you all know where to find them, right?
Anyway, I finished the book great and good FotB (and official firearms trainer of WCD) Karl Rehn recommended back when I posted about the Newhall shootout: Newhall Shooting – A Tactical Analysis: Survival Lessons from One of Law Enforcement’s Deadliest Shootings (affiliate link) and I do recommend it, with some small quibbles.
One thing I learned from that book: in addition to the CHP Newhall training film, the LA County Sheriff’s Department made their own training film. I think you are better served watching the CHP film first, as the quality of the transfer on this one isn’t that great, and I have questions about the accuracy of LACSD’s film. In the interest of the historical record, however, here it is:
Totally unrelated: ever wonder about astronaut weightlessness training in the days before the “Vomit Comet”? Yeah, I do, too. Wikipedia says that the Mercury astronauts trained in a C-131. But this purports to be vintage film of Glenn, Grissom, and Shepherd training in an F-100F (not all three at the same time, obviously):
And speaking of the F-100: “TAC On Target”, from 1962, which features various aircraft in action (including the F-100, F-104, F-105, and F-4C).
I’ll just note: for those of you who work for, or deal with, a certain large company in the computer networking area (hi, Borepatch!) “TAC On Target” may have an entirely different connotation for you.
Noted 2.
May 28th, 2020Something else I like, from Rod Dreher: “Ode to the Roof Koreans“.
Noted.
May 28th, 2020I don’t usually link to Reason unless it is backup for a blog entry, or to make a larger point.
But I do rather like this J.D. Tuccille piece, “In Praise of Pointy Things“, and commend it to your attention.
Story: when I was going through the citizen’s police academy in !Austin, the chief of police showed up pretty regularly. There’s an entire class block devoted to his presentation on officer related stress and the physiology of critical encounters.
He likes to tell a story about asking his officers, “Why do you carry a knife?” and then mocking their responses. “In case I need to cut a seat belt.” “When was the last time you had to cut somebody out of a seat belt?” And so on, and so on. I kind of like the guy in general, but this is one aspect of his style I don’t get.
His answer: “In case I need to stab you.”
My answer: “Because I am a tool using animal. I have evolved over millions of years to be able to use tools. A knife is a tool.“
Obit watch: May 28, 2020.
May 28th, 2020“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 58
May 27th, 2020Thanks to all the folks who stopped by and left comments on my Memorial Day post. Thanks also to Borepatch for the linky love.
There are some videos on YouTube about Father Capodanno, but I have not been able to watch any of them yet, and I don’t want to put them up without watching them first. So here’s a couple of things I thought were odd or diverting.
Many of my readers are probably familiar with the idea of ASMR videos. I wasn’t aware that there was such a thing as ASMR gun cleaning videos.
(I have another reason for posting this video. But I’ll go into that at some point in the future.)
Bonus: More hot metal! “Modern Steel Making”, from the United States Steel Corporation in glorious Technicolor!
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 57
May 26th, 2020I feel like I’m in a transition between Memorial Day observance and getting back to (what passes for) normal.
So here’s some military aviation videos that I think are interesting. First off, this is apparently a promo film for Northrop’s YB-49, aka “the Flying Wing”.
This is where I mention that the YB-49 never saw active service: the Air Force went with the B-36 instead.
Bonus video #1: “Instrument Flight”. In the T-38-A Talon.
I’ve always been fond of the T-38. If I had the money and ability to fly jets, I’d love to own and fly my own T-38. (Wikipedia says there are seven privately owned ones in the US.)
Bonus video #2, just because I’m feeling extra geeky: a training film about the F-111’s terrain following radar.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 56
May 25th, 2020In honor of Memorial Day: “To Save a Soldier”. This is an ABC News documentary from 1966, narrated by Henry Fonda, and following a wounded soldier through the military medical system: from Vietnam to his homecoming.
Bonus video: “The Greatest Raid of All”, a Jeremy Clarkson documentary about the British commando raid on the St. Nazaire dock in March of 1942.
The St. Nazaire raid is a great story: Giles Milton’s Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (affiliate link) contains a good summary.