1967-68: Movies

Mar12

Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris, reviewed by Lazygal, is a nonfiction history of the five movies that were nominated for Best Picture Oscars in 1968: Dr. Doolittle, The Graduate, Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner, In the Heat of the Night and Bonnie and Clyde. I haven’t read the book, but I have it on hold at the library.

I’ve seen four of the five movies; I may have seen In the Heat of the Night. I did see a few episodes of the TV show that came after the movie. If I did see the movie, I don’t remember much about it. The Academy found it much more memorable: In the Heat of the Night won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1968.

The Graduate was the top-grossing film of 1967, and Bonnie and Clyde was probably the most violent and disturbing film of the year. I didn’t see either of those two when they first came out, since I would have been too young for the content of either. I did see them later on, but by that time The Graduate was already history, somewhat passÃ©. And Bonnie and Clyde was, well, violent and disturbing.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was OK, a Sidney Poitier vehicle about racism and interracial marriage, but Poitier’s better film of the year was To Sir With Love, which starred the popular black actor as a schoolteacher in an inner city high school in London.

Dr. Dolittle was silly, with Rex Harrison as the doctor who could speak to the animals. He certainly couldn’t sing, and I don’t know why he ever tried. It didn’t matter so much in My Fair Lady, since Professor Higgins was such a pretender anyway. It made sense that he would only pretend to sing.

The film version of Camelot also came out in 1967, and it won three Academy Awards, but it was not even nominated for any the biggies: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director. If I were choosing the best film of 1967, I’d certainly choose Camelot over any of the above nominees for Best Picture. Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave were amazing and memorable as King Arthur and Guinevere, and the “messages” of the movie about temptation, pride, sin and imperfection are spot-on. The screen-play is based on T.H. White’s version of the King Arthur story, Once and Future King, published in 1958.

Poetry Friday: Poem #43, The Village Blacksmith by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1841

Mar9

“Do you say you can’t endure poetry? What! not while you have the grand, heroic songs of Homer, the deep grandeur of Dante, the sublime majesty of Milton, the subtle, sympathetic humanity of Shakespeare, together with the sweet singing of America’s Longfellow, Whittier and Bryant?” ~Occupations for Women, 1897

UNDER a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate’er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter’s voice,
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother’s voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling,—rejoicing,—sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night’s repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.

1975: Events and Inventions

Mar7

April 30, 1975. Two years after the last U.S. troops left Vietnam in 1973, the South Vietnamese government surrenders Saigon, the capital city, to invading communist North Vietnamese troops who rename the city Ho Chi Minh City. Thousands of South Vietnamese who have some association with the United States or with the South Vietnamese government try to escape the new communist regime by boat or by plane.

April, 1975. Nineteen-year-old Bill Gates forms Microsoft with his friend, Paul Allen. Their first computer software program is Altair-BASIC for the Altair 8800 microcomputer.

April, 1975. The new communist Khmer Rouge government, led by dictator Pol Pot, embarks on a program of radical social transformation. The Khmer Rouge will ban all religion and especially target Buddhist monks, Muslims, Christians, Western-educated intellectuals, educated people in general, people who have contact with Western countries or with Vietnam, disabled people, and the ethnic Chinese, Laotians and Vietnamese. The four-year period of Khmer Rouge rule will see the deaths of approximately two million Cambodians as a combined result of political executions, starvation, and forced labour. Due to the large numbers, the deaths during the rule of the Khmer Rouge are often considered a genocide, and commonly known as the Cambodian Holocaust or Cambodian Genocide.

June 5, 1975. The Suez Canal opens for the first time since the Six-Day War in 1967.

July 17, 1975. American Apollo and Russian Soyuz spacecraft dock in space, and astronaut Tom Stafford and cosmonaut Alexei Leono shake hands 140 miles above the Atlantic Ocean in the first joint Russian/US space venture.

August 1, 1975. The Helsinki Accords, which officially recognize Europe’s national borders and respect for human rights, are signed in Finland. Thirty-five nations, including the USA, Canada, and all European states except Albania and Andorra, sign the declaration in an attempt to improve relations between the Communist bloc and the West.

September 16, 1975. Papua New Guinea gains its independence from Australia.

November, 1975. The United Kingdom opens its first underwater pipeline for North Sea oil.

November, 1975. The nation of Angola in southern Africa gains its independence from Portugal and almost immediately is torn by civil war between at least four political groups vying for power in the country. The Marxist (Communist) group, MPLA, receives aid from the SOviet Union and from Cuba, while other factions are supported by the U.S. or by South Africa.

November 22, 1975. Don Juan Carlos Borbon y Borbon becomes King of Spain after the death of General Francisco Franco who has ruled Spain since 1939. Spain’s government will transition to a constitutional democratic monarchy.

1974: Events and Inventions

Mar6

February, 1974. Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn is exiled from the Soviet Union after publication of his epic novel The Gulag Archipelago, a book critical of the communist government in the USSR. Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970.

March 8, 1974. Charles de Gaulle Airport opens in Paris, France.

April 25, 1974. Carnation Revolution: A coup in Portugal restores democracy. Despite repeated appeals from the revolutionaries on the radio asking the population to stay home, thousands of Portuguese descend on the streets, mixing with the military insurgents. The name Carnation Revolution comes from the fact that no shots are fired, and the celebrating Portuguese citizens put carnation flowers on the soldiers’ guns and on their uniforms.

May 17, 1974. Dublin and Monaghan bombings: The Protestant terrorist group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), explode numerous bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, in the Republic Of Ireland. The attacks kill 33 civilians and wound almost 300.

May 18, 1974. India successfully detonates its first nuclear weapon, becoming the 6th nation to do so.

August 8, 1974. President Richard Nixon, facing impeachment by Congress over the Watergate scandal and cover-up, becomes the first U.S. president to reign from office. Vice-President Gerald Ford will become the new president.

September 12, 1974. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia is deposed by the Derg, a military committee which soon embraces communism and will rule in Ethiopia for the next thirteen years.

November 21, 1974. In Birmingham, England, IRA (Irish Republican Army) terrorists bomb 2 pubs, killing 21 people.

Rubik’s Cube, a 3-D mechanical puzzle, is invented sometime in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture ErnÅ‘ Rubik. As of January 2009, 350 million cubes have been sold worldwide, making Rubik’s Cube the world’s top-selling puzzle game.

'Solving the Rubik's Cube' photo (c) 2008, Steve Rhodes - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/

1973: Events and Inventions

Mar5

January 1, 1973. The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union.

January 22, 1973. Roe v. Wade: The U.S. Supreme Court overturns state bans on abortion and declares that a right to privacy under the due process clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution extends to a woman’s decision to have an abortion.

January 27, 1973. The Paris Peace Accords to end the Vietnam War are signed in France. President Nixon tells the American people that the treaty will “bring peace with honor.”

February 27, 1973. The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Seventy days later in May the occupation by Native American activists ends with an agreement between protesters and the U.S. government.

May 3, 1973. The Sears Tower in Chicago is finished, becoming the world’s tallest building at 1,451 feet.

May 14, 1973. Skylab, the first orbiting space station for the U.S., blasts off from Cape Canaveral.

September 11, 1973. President Salvador Allende of Chile commits suicide or is assassinated, and opponents take over the government of Chile in a military coup. General Augusto Pinochet becomes President of Chile and Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army. According to various reports and investigations 1,200â€“3,200 people will be killed, up to 80,000 interned, and up to 30,000 tortured by Pinochet’s regime, including women and children. Pinochet rules as dictator in Chile until the transfer of power to a democratically elected president in 1990. Gringolandia by Lyn-Miller Lachman is a Young Adult fiction novel set in the United States and in Pinochet’s Chile.

October, 1973. Students revolt in Bangkok, Thailand, resulting in democratic elections in 1975 and 1976 and the withdrawal of American forces from Thailand. Political instability and communist insurgencies continue in Thailand throughout the 1970’s and the 1980’s.

October 6-25, 1973. A coalition of of Arab states, including Egypt and Syria, launches an attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, a Jewish holy day of atonement and forgiveness. Egyptian and Syrian forces cross ceasefire lines to enter the Israeli-held Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, and the Soviet Union and the United States support opposite sides in the war with weapons and strategic advice. As a result of this war, Israel and Egypt both realize that it in both countries’ best interest to reach a peace accord.

November 27, 1973. Greek dictator George Papadopoulos is ousted in a military coup led by Brigadier General Dimitrios Ioannidis.

Sunday Salon: Books Read in February, 2012

Mar4

I’m taking a mostly-break from blogging for Lent, so most of the following books will be reviewed here after Resurrection Sunday in April.

Children’s and Young Adult Fiction:
Love Twelve Miles Long by Glenda Armand. Semicolon review here.
Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson. Semicolon review here.
Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt. Should have won the Newbery Award.
Blood Red Road by Moira Young. Winner of the Cybils Award for Young Adult Fantasy/Science Fiction.

Adult Fiction:
Lone Star Rising by Elmer Kelton. A three book trilogy about Texas Ranger, Rusty Shannon, that I picked up at a library book sale a long time ago. Semicolon review of The Buckskin Line, the first book in the trilogy, here.
The Hour Before Dawn by Penelope Wilcock. Semicolon review here.
Dancing Priest by Glynn Young.
What Alice Forgot by Lianne Moriarty.
The Expats by Chris Pavone.
Joy for Beginners by Ericca Bauermeister.

Nonfiction:
Desert Elephants by Helen Cowcher. Semicolon review here.
The Devil in Pew Number Seven by Rebecca Nichols Alonzo. Semicolon review here.
Sahara: A Natural History by Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle. Semicolon review here.
Passport Through Darkness by Kimberly L. Smith.
Moon Shot by Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton with Jay Barbree.

Poetry Friday: Poem #42, Bright Star by John Keats, 1838

Mar2

“The poetry of earth is never dead.”~John Keats

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art–
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors–
No–yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever–or else swoon to death.

A 2009 movie called Bright Star tells of the tragic love between John Keats and his neighbor, Fanny Brawne, throughout the years in which Keats wrote several of his most celebrated poems, including this sonnet. This sonnet may or may not have been written specifically for Fanny, but it is similar to these words from a letter Keats wrote to Fanny Brawne: “I will imagine you Venus tonight and pray, pray, pray to your star like a Heathen. Your’s ever, fair Star.”

1971: Books and Literature

Mar1

The Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.

Newbery Medal for children’s literature goes to Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars.

Children’s/YA Published in 1971:
The Shrinking of Treehorn by Florence Parry Heide. Reviewed by Nicola at Back to Books.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien. Winner of the Newbery Medal in 1972.

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.

1970: Events and Inventions

Feb25

January 15, 1970. After a 32-month fight for independence from Nigeria, Biafran forces surrender to the Nigerian government.

April 17, 1970. Apollo 13, crippled by an explosion in its service module early in its flight, returns to the earth safely, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. The three astronauts on board are safe and in good health.

April 29, 1970. The U.S. invades Cambodia to hunt out the Viet Cong; widespread, large antiwar protests occur in the U.S.

September 1, 1970. An assassination attempt against King Hussein of Jordan precipitates the Black September crisis, war between Palestinian guerillas and Jordanian troops.

September 27, 1970. King Hussein of Jordan and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yassir Arafat sign a peace agreement to end the war between Jordanian troops and Palestinian guerrillas.

October, 1970. Anwar Sadat becomes president of Egypt after the death of Gamel Abdel Nasser. Sadat is expected to take a more moderate attitude toward Israel and the U.S.

October 9, 1970. The Khmer Republic is officially proclaimed in Cambodia. The Khmer Republic is a right-wing pro-United States military-led government headed by General Lon Nol and Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak that took power in the March 18, 1970 coup against Prince Norodom Sihanouk, then the country’s head of state.

October 22-24, 1970. Chilean army commander RenÃ© Schneider is shot in Santiago; the government declares a state of emergency. Schneider dies October 25th. On October 24, Salvador Allende is elected President of Chile.

November 13, 1970. Hafez al-Assad comes to power in Syria, following a military coup within the Ba’ath party. Assad will rule Syria for the next thirty years until his death in June, 2000.

November 13, 1970. 500,000 people are feared dead after a tidal wave hits East Pakistan (Bangladesh).

1969: Events and Inventions

Feb24

February 4, 1969. In Cairo, Yasser Arafat is elected Palestine Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress.

March 7, 1969. 70 year old Golda Meir, head of the Israeli Labor Party, becomes Israel’s new prime minister.

April 4, 1969. In Houston, Dr. Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart in a man, Hanskell Karp, who lives for 65 hours.

April 9, 1969. The supersonic airliner Concorde 002 takes to the air in the UK for a maiden flight of 21 minutes.

July 21, 1969. Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the moon.

August 15, 1969. The British government sends troops into Derry, Northern Ireland to restore the peace between groups of Protestant and Catholic street fighters in the war-torn city. Troops will also be sent to Belfast to break up fighting there.

August 15-17, 1969. The world’s biggest rock festival is held at Woodstock in upstate New York. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, The Who, and Santana are a few of he many performers at the festival.

September, 1969. North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh dies as the war in Vietnam continues.

September, 1969. In Libya, a group of army officers, led by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, seize powere while King Idris of Libya is out of the country. Gaddafi will rule Libya until his death in 2011.

September 28, 1969. The Social Democrats and the Free Democrats receive a majority of votes in the German parliamentary elections, and decide to form a common government. Willy Brandt becomes chancellor, the first Social Democrat to be elected in 39 years.

October, 1969. Civil war rages in Nigeria as the rebel republic of Biafra fights for independence from Nigerian rule. 300,000 civilian refugees in Biafra are facing starvation as the Nigerian government has stopped Red Cross flights carrying relief aid. Nigeria says that the Biafran rebels are using the flights to get arms as well as food.

Semicolon

Books we must have though we lack bread.

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