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The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

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The Black Stallion

An evening pause: The central sequence from the 1979 movie, The Black Stallion, when the shipwrecked boy Alec succeeds in taming the shipwrecked Arabian horse. The combination of Carmine Coppola’s music and Caleb Deschanel’s photography in this sequence is unmatched.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

One comment

  • MICHAEL MILL

    I am happy to see that someone else also has the highest regard for The Black Stallion, but we agree on so many things (libertarian, conservative electronics engineer)that I shouldn’t be surprised.
    As you say it is unsurpassed and probably the Best for the match of pure visual wordless beauty, with music (bravo to pappa Coppola).
    Carroll Ballard (director) seems to know how to capture the magic;
    [see also “Never Cry Wolf” with music by marc isham, and “Wind” just for fun]. Most people don’t know of it or take it seriously..a kids movie!.
    But for visual beauty also…have you seen “The Duellists”…ridley scotts first amazing film, again with beautiful music by Howard Blake! Or John Frankenheimers beautiful and stark black and white first film “The Train”.
    Also “Days of Heaven” by Terrence Malick has many such moments.
    It is wonderful when films can capture visual/musical “magic”.

    Along these lines of beautiful or haunting imagery can i offer a list of favorite films/directors (I’ll bet you will also know/appreciate these)

    david lean:lawrence of arabia (probably the overall best film realized so far…)
    ridley scott:alien,bladerunner, the duellists, legend(faery tale)
    carroll ballard:black stallion,never cry wolf
    john frankenheimer:the train, black sunday, grand prix
    steven speilberg:E.T., close encounters, jaws
    james cameron:terminator,aliens,the abyss,avatar

    also
    william wyler:roman holliday, big country, freindly persuasion
    fred zinneman:the day of the jackel, the sundowners
    william friedkin:the french connection, the excorsist
    sydney pollack:jeremiah johnson, day of the condor
    robert mulligan:to kill a mockingbird

    Do you know of any other such films that capture that visual magic?

    I appreciate your website…be well,
    Michael D. mill

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