Everybody’s favorite diskinetic Parkie, Michael J. Fox, dropped in on Stephen Colbert last night. I’ve always loved the fantasy aspect of Snoopy’s doghouse, with its pool table and Van Gogh original, and I enjoy it when Colbert has the same sort of fun with his desk.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Word – Flight Risk | ||||
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Bismo asked,
Ever hear of the American Community Survey? Separate form from the Census Bureau, sent to smaller sampling of homes than the full census. Just got one.
No, I never had heard of the American Community Survey, and my initial reaction was that it must be a fake census form sent by a marketing outfit. But no, it’s for real, from the United States government, and you’ll find it at this link.
The questions get a bit particular. Click here to see a PDF sample of the form that Bismo received. Here are a couple of examples.
I can understand where the Census Bureau is coming from. For example, they want to know not only if grandma is living at home, but how impaired she may be. Does grandma have unofficial custody of her grandkids? How many people work off-hours shifts, or have flex time? But considering that the American Community Survey is mandatory for those who receive it, with a maximum fine of $5000, I can also see where the Tea Baggers would say, “they’re steppin’ on our freedoms.”
Spring, 1970 saw yet another crazy time in American history, at the end of an impossibly eventful decade that was full of so much change in every aspect of life, from music and culture, to politics and technology. I remember it well. First, there was the drama of Apollo 13.
It sure seemed as though Lovell, Swigert, and Haise had only a 1% chance of making it back safely; but, incredibly, they did.
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The following week there was the first Earth Day, which to me seemed to have a feeling of desperation about it, because air and water pollution really were bad back then.
Then there were the Kent State killings, 40 years ago today. Hoo boy, did that leave an impression. Two years after Walter Cronkite had declared Johnson’s Vietnam War to not be winnable, Kissinger and Nixon decided that escalating the conflict into Cambodia would be a great idea.
I don’t think I’m supposed to hotlink to BBC “Witness” podcasts, but I’m going to do it anyway for their piece on Kent State. Listen to how many gunshots there were. The Guard opened fire on unarmed students. There’s no other way to describe it.
[audio:http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/witness/witness_20100504-1030a.mp3]What galls me is how, in the Sixties, conservatives told student radicals to love America or leave it. Now the conservatives are the ones who are protesting — with some of them armed — because they don’t like the ways things are. I don’t hear anybody telling them to love it or leave it.
I’ve never seen ‘Georgy Girl’, so I’m look forward to seeing Lynn Redgrave in that. Here she is in some scenes from movies that I have on hand.
This is Lynn with Rita Tushingham, in scenes from the wild Swinging Sixties farce ‘Smashing Time’ (1967), which I’d previously posted in its entirety but have offline for the time being.
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Lynn Redgrave with Petula Clark
Magnetic recording tape. Perfected by the Nazis, it is one of the most important innovations in the history of audio, along with Edwin Armstrong’s invention of frequency modulation. These two technologies changed everything.
Magnetic recording in studios, and vinyl microgroove records for homes, first appeared at about the same time — 1947-1948. The transistor was also created in 1947, but it wouldn’t be established in high fidelity audio for another 20 years.
The first tape recorders were brought to America from Germany after World War II by a man named Jack Mullin, who modified one of the units and demonstrated it for Bing Crosby’s technical producer. The tale is told at the end of this link, with the fascinating story of the development of videotape.
On October 1, 1947, two takes of Philco Radio Time with Bing Crosby were recorded magnetically by Mullin, and edited into a single, seamless show. The audio player has a minute of that historic program, preceded by a minute of how Bing sounded on January 29 of that year, using disc recording technology. You may recognize the name of Bing’s guitar player, whose son had a successful career as a record producer and musician, and be sure to catch the name of Bing’s arranger-conductor, who would later have a connection to the Peanuts TV specials.
With Crosby’s financial backing, Ampex began manufacturing tape recorders. One of the first production units was given to Les Paul, who had played guitar for Bing. It’s impossible to overstate the influence of what Les Paul did with his tape recorders.
Here are a couple of captivating videos of Les with Mary Ford, performing two of their best known numbers, taken from films of TV shows. Ironically, Ampex wouldn’t perfect magnetic videotape recording until Les and Mary were off of TV. In the second clip, Les kids around before getting to the real demonstration of how he and Mary did what they did so beautifully. These are worth watching twice — first, for Les, and then for Mary. I eat up this stuff like ice cream.
These clips are being streamed from Oobleckboy on YouTube. The comments are his.
