Friday Ephemera
Original Star Wars trailer. (1977) “The story of a boy, a girl and a universe… A billion years in the making.” // Life-size beer brewing Bender. Bite his shiny metal ass. // Cannibalism in Texas. (h/t, Ace.) // Tintin redubbed. Caution: salty language. // A magnificently cheesy moment from Mike Hodges’ Flash Gordon. (1980) Sydow to the max. // The art of Syd Mead. // The race to the Moon, told graphically. // New solar cycle begins. “This upcoming cycle will be one of the most intense ever measured.” More. // Soyuz TMA-11, Kazakhstan. // Oliver Kamm on Oliver “laughing boy” James. // Deogolwulf on Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, mistress of rigour. // Andrew Bostom and Matthias Kuntzel on Islamic anti-Semitism. // John Rosenberg on Obama not being “ideologically black.” // Five dangerous things you should let your kids do. “They’re young. They heal fast.” // Tokyo’s traffic control centre. (h/t, Coudal.) // Inverkip power station. (h/t, 30gms.) // The science projects of Johnny Chung Lee. Low-budget EEG, the $14 Steadicam and new things to do with your Wii remote. (h/t, The EQ-aliser.) // 2008 Consumer Electronics Show. // Tetris, played well. (h/t, An Insomniac.) // Snow flakes. // Harlan Ellison: Dreams with Sharp Teeth. (h/t, Savage Popcorn.) // Punishments of 19th century China. // 79 versions of Popcorn. (h/t, Dan Collins.) // And, via The Thin Man, a tale of improper passion.
Hi David, it’s Vitruvius here. Over the last month I’ve spent some time watching some Charlie Rose interviews on the web (they have been published there via Charlie Rose Inc.; there’s no copyright issue). My understanding is that it is generally agreed that Mr. Rose interrupts his interlocutors a bit too much, yet as he is sometimes doing that for valid production reasons, and as I have a bit of that habit myself, I won’t hold it against him too much 😉
It is also my understanding that it is generally agreed that he does interview a number of important and interesting guests. In my opinion, one of the the nice things about the Internet availability of Charlie’s interviews is that I can skip the interviews I’m not interested in. It is the case that there are certain topics I’m interested in, and it is nice to be able to study those directly rather than waiting for them to pass by in some broadcast schedule, or worse, be forever lost.
One of the things I’m interested in is listening to substantive interviews with old people who have experienced events in the large and have developed aspects of wisdom that I think are worth studying. Since this Friday Ephemera is, as understand it, at least in part related to the desires of those who may wish to occupy themselves with some of these sorts of studies, y’all may wish to consider perusing the following interviews, which I have carefully selected to be potentially interesting to what I understand to be the more common natures of the Friends of David Thompson, and have presented in what I consider to be a constructive sequence (they’re one hour each).
Alan Greenspan
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-8342614253746711839
Milton Friedman
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-2963837673813979186
Henry Kissinger
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-6468270690914589463
Lee Kuan Yew
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-1444170416712942047
As you might imagine, Milton Friedman and Lee Kuan Yew don’t agree on the war on drugs. Yet Alan Greenspan and Lee Kuan Yew do agree about the problem we face if we create a social system in which we are successful, and yet that system lets too many people “feel” they are too far behind: those people will eventually take down the system, and thus our success. Considering that Alan Greenspan is a noted libertarian (his discussion of his thirty-year relationship with Ayn Rand is an interesting part of his interview), I find his agreement on that matter, with Lee Kuan Yew, most interesting.
Vitruvius,
Thanks very much for those. Will peruse when time permits. I’m still mulling the “Friends of David Thompson” bit. Maybe I should issue laminated membership cards with “Guild of Evil” in tiny print. Or better yet, tasteful amulets, for that beatnik exclusivity.
Incidentally, if you add the “http://” prefix to any links you post, they’ll automatically appear as active, which saves pasting the URL into a browser and adding the prefix manually, as it were.
You’re welcome, David. If you find any of those interviews to be of a style you find effective, I recommend going to Google Video and searching for Charlie Rose directly; there are on the order of a hundred of them there. People used to ask, what will we do when technology frees us from work? In retrospect, the answer is obvious: play with the technology. And so the question remains, how effective is one’s play? Where does one’s axiological portfolio stand?
I wouldn’t worry about the laminated membership cards, the function you perform as moderator (bouncer) here is more than sufficient to delineate who is considered admittable, and the legacy of those who have contributed significant comments is enough to establish among the cognoscenti who the VIPs are.
On the matter of the http prefix, I used to do that, and then I got bounced by the spam filter at some point, so I dropped it because the filters aren’t smart enough to figure that out yet (the Turing test is still safe). I’ll try to remember to include them next time. (Of course, in Firefox, I just double-index-click followed by thumb-click, and I get right through ~ what, you don’t have a properly configured five-button mouse? Oh, sorry 😉
Since it’s late night here for me now, I leave you with a classic interview of Don Rickles on Tom Synder’s classic Late Late Show (I liked Snyder’s style, and believe me, I’ve seen all the Don Rickles interviews available on the Web):
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-7211582033469032676
As the Wikipedia entry on the Borscht Belt – http://tinyurl.com/3a3kvx – says, “Comedians who got their start or regularly performed in Borscht Belt resorts include: Joey Adams, Woody Allen, Morey Amsterdam, Milton Berle, Shelley Berman, Al Bernie, Mel Brooks, Lenny Bruce, George Burns, Red Buttons, Sid Caesar, Jack Carter, Myron Cohen, Bill Dana, Rodney Dangerfield, Phyllis Diller, Betty Garrett, George Gobel, Shecky Greene, Buddy Hackett, Mickey Katz, Danny Kaye, Alan King, Robert Klein, Jack Leonard, Pesach Burstein, Jerry Lewis, Jackie Mason, Lou Menchell, Jan Murray, Carl Reiner, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, Freddie Roman, Jackie Vernon, Jackie Wakefield, Jonathan Winters, and Henny Youngman.”
Because as Oscar Wilde said, “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you”.
http://gawker.com/343282/advertisers-did-911
HT Rantburg.
“…the function you perform as moderator (bouncer)…”
Bouncer? I was thinking more along lines of scintillating host – a benign and welcoming figure, albeit one packing heat and equipped with deadly henchlesbians.
The first Star Wars trailer … brings back memories. Sitting in a theatre in Sarnia Ontario, waiting for Logans’ Run to start, when this ‘teaser’ trailer comes on. I took one look at the guy in the giant chimpanzee suit and thought, this is going to be really bad — total stinkeroo. I figured that the six teenagers who eventually show up for it are going to spend half the time laughing at it, the other half throwing popcorn at each other.
About 9 months later, the thing premieres, and takes over the world. Shows you why nobody’s put me in charge of a movie studio.
On the other hand, the music they used was kinda nice and mysterious; John William’s bombastic score wasn’t done yet when the teaser was put out.
Think I’ll go look for the Logan’s Run trailer. Couldn’t be any worse … or could it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WUUnc1M0TA
Watching the original Star Wars trailer, it becomes apparent just how much of the film’s impact depended on John Williams’ in-your-face score. It excuses so much rickety naffness. Like Richard Donner’s Superman, I suppose. The score is bigger and more enduring than the actual film.
Stumbled across this on Youtube (long story), and thought you might like it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5TJApnJ8X8
Ah, the young woman having the infamous “screaming hot dog” trip. Oh, we mustn’t judge her harshly. We’ve all been there.
I believe I posted that some time ago.
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2007/09/friday-epheme-1.html
Damnit.
Oh well. It probably deserves to get as wide an airing as possible – to warn people about the danger of drugs.