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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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Dean Martin & Rick Nelson – Rio Bravo

An evening pause: This medley of songs were performed as part of the Howard Hawks’ 1959 western Rio Bravo. The first song, “My rifle, my pony, and me,” was actually adapted from the main theme by Dimitri Tiomkin from Hawks’ earlier classic, Red River (1948). When Diane and I were watching this recently, I recognized the music, but it took a while to figure out where I’d heard it before.

Both movies are examples of the kind of entertaining and rich films Hollywood used to produce, routinely.

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

5 comments

  • wayne

    Mr. Z.,
    (Serendipitously, I have “The Big Chill” cued up in the dvd player, as part of my Bogart marathon for July.)

    Question–
    Do you know any of the backstory on why Hawks did not take credit for directing “The Thing From Another World?”

    Great Obscure Cultural Factoid–
    -Actress Mary Astor was Hawks sister-in-law, she was married to his brother Kenneth, who was killed in 1930 while filming the aerial scenes for “Such Men Are Dangerous.”

  • wayne

    “Howard Hawks: A Hell of a Good Life”
    (1978)
    https://youtu.be/GIU3ZZ7gsqc
    56:36

  • sippin_bourbon

    This is my #2 in the Howard Hawks trio of films. James Dean did better in Son’s of Katie Elder.
    I prefer El Dorado. James Caan and Robert Mitchum do a better job rounding the cast with Wayne.
    At #3 Rio Lobo is only fun to watch because of Jack Elam.

  • Andrew M Winter

    That was a great scene!
    Another great moment is when Dean Martin’s character, who is suffering severe alcohol withdrawal, hears what is called “The Degüello”. The film has it that this was the bugle piece played by Santa Anna’s buglers for three days and nights prior to the last assault on The Alamo. Here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR-KbvXvBd8.

    It is a gorgeous piece, unfortunately it is NOT the piece played at the Alamo. It is a highly romanticized piece composed for the film. A much more accurate rendition of “El toque a degüello” is in the film from 2004 “The Alamo” with Billy Bob Thornton as Davey Crockett.

    Crockett gets on the battlement and plays the harmony to the buglers tune on his fiddle in a very moving scene.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvhryySXbJ8. That’s the real Dequello playing in the background. You can find it out of movie context in other places on YouTube. Oh here is the lead in from the film:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKD5TgHWyxM

  • Andrew M Winter

    OH MY. I let that Youtube page go on and this is what I got! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEBLbWLldR0
    That is the actual bugle call. And like any bugle call it is the communications of orders on the battle field and in actuality very very short.

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