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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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FlippinDingDong – Trailer Annie

An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who rightly added, “No clue what this means, but I’m certain the student animators had fun making it.”

Fun to watch too. They might have done it on a computer, but it sure has the feel of hand-drawn animation.

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

9 comments

  • Col Beausabre

    “The General” is Douglas MacArthur with his trademark sunglasses and corncob pipe

    https://content.artofmanliness.com/uploads/2010/11/macarthur_pipe_400.jpg

  • eddie willers

    Kinda strange seeing a cartoon with the line, “To help defeat the sappy Jappies would be great!” made by a Sony division.

  • Col Beausabre

    “Kinda strange seeing a cartoon with the line, “To help defeat the sappy Jappies would be great!” made by a Sony division.”

    :Late in WW2. the US public began regarding the Empire and its troops with disdain, so, “The Japs are saps’ is probably the the sort of thing on could hear. The Army decided that the country needed a reminder of reality, particularly in view of the anticipated casualties of Operation DOWNFALL.

    https://external-preview.redd.it/TPpMCVDLVRq6eIWMFuLYo5ZSB8nIJ1eD0KFl0fOD9ys.jpg?auto=webp&s=a3cd415e917fd0b8ced63133fcecc93dacfbbd6b

  • JC Collins

    That’s a period cartoon. I’m not saying that I remember it from that time, but I remember it from the 1960s. Spike jones!

  • JC Collins: No, what you remember is Spike Jones’ music, which is of that time. The animation is new.

  • Phil Berardelli

    Right you are, Bob. But did you notice that the animation features wobbly registration, such as would result whenever a film had been run through a projector a number of times? Or the incidental dust bits and “scratches” on the supposed film stock? Amazing that I spent so much time and effort trying to preserve film and prevent degradation and now sophisticated young animators can apply those aspects artificially.

    Here’s another growing trend in film-presentation technology, which I think will create new existence for historical material. Peter Jackson did this with “They Shall Not Grow Old” in 1918, and it’s appearing more and more frequently. Fascinating!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZuP41ALx_Q&feature=emb_rel_pause

  • wayne

    Phill–
    Those films at your link, are amazing! I do object however, with the added colorization & sound.
    Q: what software is used to stabilize the picture?

    “John Carter of Mars”
    Test Animation
    Bob Clampett
    https://youtu.be/bTAlgZlqwnQ
    2:27

  • Phil Berardelli: Your observations note a re-definition of ‘reality’. If film-makers can make a film look ‘period’, then what are researchers 300 years hence to think? What is a ‘real’ film from a given era, and what has been ‘manufactured’. Even the media won’t give much of a clue, as many older films have been issued on modern media. It will be a bit of a mess.

  • Edward

    Phil Berardelli,
    Thank you for your time and effort to preserve films. I used to go to the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto to watch many of the old movies on the big screen. I may have seem some that you helped to preserve.

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