Technically, "premiere" refers to the first public showing, generally followed some weeks later by general distribution. But I did see it on its first general release. The formal premiere pretty much went out of fashion with the first "saturation release," invented by, (who else?) Steven...
We have fallen into a schizoid mindset when it comes to health and long life. On one hand, we try to keep as many people as possible alive for as long as possible. On the other, we're in despair over how we can care for a huge, aging population.
The weirdness works the other way, too. When I read that actress Oona Chaplin was Charlie Chaplin's granddaughter I thought surely this must be a mistake, they must mean great- or even great-great granddaughter. But it's true. Charlie was born in 1889 and Oona was born in 1987, when he would...
I remember when Dave Garroway anchored the Today Show and John Cameron Swayze broadcast NBC's Camel News Caravan, which, as the title suggests, was sponsored by a tobacco company, another relic of TV's past.
I've sometimes come to the uncomfortable realization that I owe my existence to the atomic bomb. In order for me to be born, Dad had to be back from overseas by no later than late September 1946. When the war ended his outfit was packing up to move up the Chinese coast to support the upcoming...
A couple of years ago, a restaurant on old Route 66 (Central Avenue) in Albuquerque was to be demolished. The local historical society protested and wanted it preserved for its "historical value as an example of classic Route 66 architecture." It was built in 1966. My brain did a flip-flop and...
I was born in 1947 and for the first 20-odd years of my life, WWII was simply "the war." That stuff in Korea and Vietnam didn't count. Many years later, my teenaged stepson asked me what I'd done in WWII. I was forced to admit that I hadn't been born for that one, my war was Vietnam. He said...
Not only did I see "Alien" in Santa Barbara on the day of its premier, but the next day I saw Sigourney Weaver by the pool at the Coral Casino in Montecito, surrounded by kids who hadn't known her name two days earlier. Then, that evening, I learned that her parents, Pat and Liz Weaver, had been...
I have way more past than future.
Babies born today will have a life expectancy of around 200 years, making them effectively immortal, because the state of medicine 200 years from now is unimaginable. 200 years ago medicine was little better than medieval. We'd better raise the new generation...
"Copacetic" means everything is satisfactory. It was briefly in use by '40s jazz musicians as a faux-aristocratic expression, and revived in the '60 by Project Mercury astronauts: "Houston, all is copacetic."
"Call the Midwife" is set in London in the '50s-early '60s. As is usual in these British productions attention to detail is meticulous. Setting is pretty much confined to the London slums.
"The Lady From Zagreb," by Philip Kerr. It's 1942 and Bernie Gunther, Berlin cop and sometime private eye, has been drafted into the SD. I love this series.
Same with "the Sixties." What everyone pictures as the sixties was the late 60s-early 70s. That was the hippie-antiwar demonstration, psychedelic era. This last weekend I went to my 50th year high school reunion. 1965 in north Texas where I lived was still in the tag end of the 50s. Some of what...
The Depression-born generation formed a relatively small group - during the Depression people were putting off marrying and starting families until better times should return. But they had a disproportionate influence on American culture, especially youth culture. A few examples: James Dean...
I highly recommend Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther mysteries. Gunther is a Berlin private eye in the '30s who left the police force because of the Nazi takeover. At first he doesn't understand how bad they really are, just that they're the people he used to arrest who somehow seized power and fired...
I think we should remember that, for a great many Americans, they had never had it so good as they did during the war years on the Homefront. After a decade of Depression, America had full employment. Employers couldn't stiff employees because of wage and price controls. Landlords couldn't gouge...
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