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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 29, 2021 11:38:30 GMT -5
Collins wrote “ Carrying the Fire,” which I’m guessing autocorrect didn’t read, and, yes, he also had the “write” stuff. He was an uncommonly sensitive and poetic writer. Also artistic: he designed the mission patch for the Apollo 11 mission, IIRC. Quite a roster of courageous explorers there. No, tired eyes and brain misread and remembered. Every day this week closing, my store has been like fighting a war, with no help and a lot of people who could have done what they needed earlier, when I had more help, or wait until the next day (or read the damn instructions and do it themselves, like a grownup). Ironically, I just recently watched From The Earth to the Moon, where Cary Elwes plays Collins, and you watch those guys go through procedures and endless steps just to program their computers to do a tiny maneuver and then I see modern society, where reading a couple of sentences to see how to lay a piece of paper on the glass lens of a copier and press a start button are too complex, and I weep for what we have lost. When I was growing up, those guys were real life superheroes, flying off into space, strapped to the back of the biggest explosive device man could build, landing on another mass and safely returned home. Now, they are footnotes and wikipedia entries to whole generations. These guys risked their lives to advance man's knowledge and present the entire world a vision of how alone it is in space and how fragile the planet is and we couldn't learn the lesson. You hear them speak today, those who are still with us, and that enthusiasm for their work is still there, even in a society that can't comprehend that they did it with less computing power than in their smart phone. I wonder if we will ever see their like again?
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Post by Prince Hal on Apr 29, 2021 13:08:41 GMT -5
So eloquently stated, codystarbuck. Of course those men had weaknesses and flaws, and back in the earliest days, they were not just super-heroic, but nigh saintly, too. Even when we discovered their foibles and peccadilloes (from a book like Wolfe's "The Right Stuff," for example), their characters and their achievements -- dare I say deeds? -- never lost their luster. I remember the fear we all felt as John Glenn came hurtling back, his heat shield afire after the three orbits around the Earth, and our exultation afterward. And this was less than 60 years after the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk. An eternity for a fourth-grader like me, but an eye-blink for our elders. My grandparents lived through the entire age of flight, all teenagers when the Wrights flew about 850 feet in just under a minute in 1903. Science and technology meant something to all of us in those early days of the space program. Oh, there was a bit of an over-reaction at first to Sputnik, but it all evened out and we seemed as a society, as a culture, and as a nation to understand the significance of science in our daily lives. I vividly remember how relieved I was to line up in the Newberry's parking lot where we each received a sugar cube daubed with pink as our Salk booster instead of having to get that enormous needle at the doctor's office. No one stayed home, I guarantee you. Polio was a horror that our parents had lived through as children. My wife's aunt survived her bout in 1916, but for the rest of her life couldn't use her left hand because of the damage it wreaked on her. She felt lucky. Our school reading books included stories about kids in iron lungs that scared the crap out of us; we were always warned not to stay in water that was chilly or cold. Yes, science meant something. My interest in the space program, which I've shared a bit here before, was intense when I was a kid, but grew even more so three years after the landing when I met my future father-in-law (more a father to me), an aeronautical engineer who worked on B-29s during the war, Boeing 707s, and the great adventure of his time, the manned space program. In 1962, he and a fellow engineer sketched out the design adopted by NASA for control of the Apollo lunar descent engines. Later in life my father-in-law wrote about the Apollo 11 landing: “I (like everyone else) was glued to the TV set. When Neil Armstrong manually controlled the successful descent to the lunar surface, the moment was very emotional. I still sometimes look up at the bright moon and think of the descent engines, with my actuators attached, sitting there forever.” My father-in-law never ever seemed to tear up, but I know that he did that night. It was such a rapturous moment. Like who knows how many others, I ran outside after watching the landing and stared at the moon, half-thinking I could somehow catch a glimpse of the lunar module. The notion that we could use our knowledge of science, harness the intellect and courage of our best and brightest, and accomplish what by any stretch of the imagination seemed impossible -- in less than ten years! -- and for a relative pittance should have been the template this nation followed to solve so many problems. But too quickly, the amazing became mundane, the next shiny object occupied our attention, and the enormous team assembled to achieve the goal was disassembled and scattered rather than being put to the challenge of another seemingly unreachable goal, like oh, say, ending our reliance on fossil fuel, which by the early 70s was already a danger. All those minds and years that could have been used for the benefit of every man, woman and child on this fragile blue marble. Thus it has ever been, I guess.
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 29, 2021 21:42:45 GMT -5
My dad served in the Air Force, in the Korean War era, with SAC, with a B-36 squadron. He always had a love of aviation and science (became an agriculture and science teacher, after finishing his college, after the Air Force) and passed it on to us. meanwhile, one of my uncles was an aeronautical engineer, working for Sabreliner, Cessna, and Rockwell, on the Shuttle Program. Around 1975 (ish), my parents took us on vacation, over the Christmas holidays, to Florida. Partly it was to attend my mother's aunt's 50th anniversary party, and part a family vacation. My dad took us out to Cape Canveral and we spent the day there looking at the displays and such. Several years later, my mother had a real estate convention in Cincinnati, OH and my dad took us off to do other things, including a trip to the Wright-Patterson Air Museum. We were in hog heaven around all those planes and jets and experimental vehicles.
I was born on the day Gemini 12 splashed down, so I was 2 1/2 when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. The first mission I can remember with any clarity was Apollo 15, then the subsequent 2, Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz. My dad used to make rubber band-powered airplanes, from his own designs and fly them and did that kind of stuff with us and encouraged us to be curious about our world. Back then, we all devoured the space program; a neighbor had the huge Saturn V model kit, while my brother built a LEM and Command Module kit. We watched the missions, we played astronaut on the playground and in the backyard, drank Tang (no matter how bad it tasted) and thrilled to the Six Million Dollar Man, not just because of the bionics, but because Steve was an astronaut. I could identify Jules Bergman from just the sound of his voice.
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 29, 2021 22:00:26 GMT -5
ps I spent a week in the hospital, getting a hernia repaired and my dad set up the electric hospital bed like an astronaut's chair, so I could watch the Six Million Dollar Man (episode with Gary Collins as a Russian cosmonaut, whose fiancee is trapped in a Russian facility, after an earthquake, with a doomsday device counting down). Almost made spending a week in hospital, in the summer, worth it. Almost. Still better than the summer before, when I spent a week in hospital, after getting hit in the face with a golf club! That sucked!
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Post by Prince Hal on Apr 30, 2021 9:02:20 GMT -5
My dad served in the Air Force, in the Korean War era, with SAC, with a B-36 squadron. He always had a love of aviation and science (became an agriculture and science teacher, after finishing his college, after the Air Force) and passed it on to us. meanwhile, one of my uncles was an aeronautical engineer, working for Sabreliner, Cessna, and Rockwell, on the Shuttle Program. Around 1975 (ish), my parents took us on vacation, over the Christmas holidays, to Florida. Partly it was to attend my mother's aunt's 50th anniversary party, and part a family vacation. My dad took us out to Cape Canveral and we spent the day there looking at the displays and such. Several years later, my mother had a real estate convention in Cincinnati, OH and my dad took us off to do other things, including a trip to the Wright-Patterson Air Museum. We were in hog heaven around all those planes and jets and experimental vehicles. I was born on the day Gemini 12 splashed down, so I was 2 1/2 when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. The first mission I can remember with any clarity was Apollo 15, then the subsequent 2, Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz. My dad used to make rubber band-powered airplanes, from his own designs and fly them and did that kind of stuff with us and encouraged us to be curious about our world. Back then, we all devoured the space program; a neighbor had the huge Saturn V model kit, while my brother built a LEM and Command Module kit. We watched the missions, we played astronaut on the playground and in the backyard, drank Tang (no matter how bad it tasted) and thrilled to the Six Million Dollar Man, not just because of the bionics, but because Steve was an astronaut. I could identify Jules Bergman from just the sound of his voice. Jules Bergman. He was a gem. When the network news organizations actually had science reporters. Aviation fascinated me as a kid. I never really had an urge to fly in particular, but I devoured those kids' anthologies of the great pilots: Bleriot; Earhart; Foss; Rickenbacker; Balchen. I can still remember those stories. And the giant picture books of the airplanes, from the Wrights to the biplanes of the First World War (I had a plastic Spad model hanging from my bedroom ceiling) to all those beautiful fighter planes from World War Two: P-38s; Spitfires; Mustangs. Loved them all.
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Post by Rob Allen on Apr 30, 2021 10:14:17 GMT -5
My father was an airplane mechanic in the Marine Corps in WWII and Korea. In 2004 my parents visited us here in Portland and we took them to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum. The big attraction there (literally big) is the Spruce Goose, but they also had lots of WWII-era planes, including some that my dad had worked on. It was a great trip.
Also, y'all have reminded me of a song lyric:
Though the flights to the moon have been in some decline I remember the eagle back in sixty nine That they walked on the moon is not as wild somehow As the fact there are footprints on the moon right now
- from Good Night Everybody by Lou & Peter Berryman
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2021 18:00:43 GMT -5
RIP to John Paul Leon, comic artist
Just saw this on Kurt Busiek's FB page...
-M
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Post by Icctrombone on May 2, 2021 18:10:23 GMT -5
RIP to John Paul Leon, comic artist Just saw this on Kurt Busiek's FB page... -M I just read this on FB. He was only 49, dead by Cancer. I remember him from the Earth X series.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 2, 2021 18:22:58 GMT -5
Also passing away was actress Olympia Dukakis, who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar of Moonstruck. Dukakis was noted as a stage actor and had worked in television and smaller movies; but, Moonstruck and the Oscar helped launch her into bigger profile roles, including Steel Magnolias, the Look Who's Talking franchise, and Mr Holland's Opus. She was nominated for an Emmy for her work in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City as Mrs Madrigal, a transgender character. She reprised the role in subsequent adaptations of Maupin's work. She was a child of Greek immigrants and experienced prejudice related to it, growing up in an ethnic neighborhood. She was also, famously, the cousin of Michael Dukakis, who ran against George HW Bush, in 1988.
As a youth, she excelled in sports and was a 3-time New England Fencing Champion. Too bad she missed out on the swashbuckler era.
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Post by Mister Spaceman on May 3, 2021 0:13:55 GMT -5
RIP, Johnny Crawford.
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Post by foxley on May 3, 2021 2:45:50 GMT -5
Also passing away was actress Olympia Dukakis, who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar of Moonstruck. Dukakis was noted as a stage actor and had worked in television and smaller movies; but, Moonstruck and the Oscar helped launch her into bigger profile roles, including Steel Magnolias, the Look Who's Talking franchise, and Mr Holland's Opus. She was nominated for an Emmy for her work in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City as Mrs Madrigal, a transgender character. She reprised the role in subsequent adaptations of Maupin's work. She was a child of Greek immigrants and experienced prejudice related to it, growing up in an ethnic neighborhood. She was also, famously, the cousin of Michael Dukakis, who ran against George HW Bush, in 1988. As a youth, she excelled in sports and was a 3-time New England Fencing Champion. Too bad she missed out on the swashbuckler era. A sad loss. She was a great actress.
I did not know about her being a fencing champion, and agree it is a shame she was too late for the swashbuckler era. I used to fence myself (and keep meaning to get back into the sport), and that little bit of knowledge means I can really tell the actors who actually know how to handle a blade. Basil Rathbone was probably the best fencer Hollywood ever had, and his screen bouts are a joy to behold. He was twice British Army Fencing Champion during World War I, and taught Errol Flynn and Tyrone Powers the finer points of swordsmanship.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 8, 2021 10:52:02 GMT -5
RIP to model/actress Tawny Kitaen, best known for the Tom Hanks movie Bachelor Party and for appearing on the hood of cars in Whitesnake videos.... Kitaen was the daughter of a beauty queen and was involved with rock bands, behind-the-scenes, from her teen years. For a time she dated RATT's Robbin Crosby and appeared on the cover of two of their album's. She was later married to David Coverdale, of Whitesnake and appeared in their iconic videos. As an actress, she co-starred with Tom Hanks, as his fiancee, in Bachelor Party, where she and some girlfriends try to spy on Hanks' wild bachelor party... She also was part of the cast of The New WKRP, as Mona Loveland, one of the DJs and had a recurring role on Hercules, the Legendary Journeys, as well as co-hosted America's Funniest People. She did have a slight comics connection, as she starred in the French film The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of Yik-Yak (aka Gwendoline), directed by French erotic film director Just Jaeckin, based on the bondage-themed melodrama comic strip The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline, by John Willie. Willie produced the strip for both his own fetish magazine, Bizarre and for Irving Klaw, who marketed it as a serial, alongside pin-up photos of Bettie Page and other models. The film was an original story, which mixed period adventure (ala Terry & the Pirates and Indiana Jones) with rated-R nudity and fetish imagery, as Gwendoline goes in search of her missing father, who was hunting a rare butterfly. This leads her to the hidden land of Yik-Yak, a society of Amazonian warriors. At one point, Gwendoline must take part in a gladiatorial battle, on a chariot, while decked out in the group's armor. This image was later copied by Dave Stevens for the cover of the first issue of Dark Horse Comics' Cheval Noir, which reprinted European comics. Kitaen's personal life was not so glamorous and included substance issues and domestic violence against then-husband Chuck Finley, a MLB baseball player. She was only 59.
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Post by Icctrombone on May 9, 2021 9:15:56 GMT -5
RIP to model/actress Tawny Kitaen, best known for the Tom Hanks movie Bachelor Party and for appearing on the hood of cars in Whitesnake videos.... Kitaen's personal life was not so glamorous and included substance issues and domestic violence against then-husband Chuck Finley, a MLB baseball player. She was only 59. It appears that she put a lot of living into those 59 years.
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Post by berkley on May 9, 2021 16:54:31 GMT -5
I didn't know Kitaen was her real name - always assumed Tawny Kitaen was a stage name entirely but wiki says that Tawny was actually a nickname from childhood. It seems like I always knew who she was but I can't recall how - maybe from the Bachelor Party movie, though after reading the wiki synopsis of that I'm not 100% sure I saw it. I saw so many of those Hollywood comedies back then a lot of them are blended together in my memory. But somehow or other by the time she was married to David Coverdale I already knew about her. DidN,y know about the Sweet Gwendoline movie, might have a look for it one of these days.
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2021 19:00:50 GMT -5
many, many know her from the 1st Ratt album cover (tho granted a lot knew her from the Whitesnake videos too).
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