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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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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