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Marilyn Monroe – Happy Birthday/Thanks For The Memories

An evening pause: Another bit of cultural history from the 1960s. From the Youtube webpage:

Marilyn footage singing to JFK on his gala birthday bash on May 19th 1962. The running joke for the evening, as planned, was that Marilyn was late! it was planned that way for the event. Everything we see Marilyn do on stage was rehearsed right down to her arm movements and jumping up and down at the end of the song as we can see in the rehearsal photos before the event. so Marilyn did this spot on as planned.

Sadly, she would be dead by August, and Kennedy by November of the next year.

Hat tip Judd Clark.

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

  • I always saw this performance as a very disrespectful and perverted performance, right in the First Ladies face. And it was all done with smiles and applause.

    This may be the moment in time when the facade about America being above the riff raff and the everyday perversions and corruptions of other governments was revealed for all to see. We are no different, we are human.

    How many saw it but did not know what was really going on? All you saw was the Hollywood glamour. I was one. But then you in time came to understand what really went on and goes on behind the doors of money and power.

    Peter Lawford being the Hollywood fixer / middleman / provider / pimp.

    And when you figure in the rest of the Kennedy family and their multi layered perversions and corruptions it all makes sense. The apple does not fall far from the tree. The president’s brother I believe was also involved with the lady. And we all know how upstanding, heroic and humble the “Lion of the Senate” was.

    Trust none of them.

    https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/the-concerted-effort-to-destroy-america

    This is our system, and this is our process, and it is designed to in time provide the people with some degree of truth through what the Constitution structures. Why? Because it is the nature in the endeavor of politics and those who choose to participate in it must always be seen as being deceitful and are always misdirecting. LYING in other words.

    And now you understand why those who aspire to power in politics are always focused on making the Constitution weaker and or entirely moot and ineffective.

    This entire performance is the moment in time where America and the American people grew up whether they realize it or not.

  • Ray Van Dune

    I was a youngster when my mother had bunch of lady friends over one afternoon, and I listened secretly while they had coffee and talked about Teddy Kennedy’s “tragedy” involving drowning a young woman. I didn’t quit loving my mom at that point, but I certainly quit assuming she had the slightest clue about anything outside the home!

  • “Teddy’s tragedy”.

    We all see what we want to see sometimes, maybe most times.

    Ah Camelot, where have you gone?

    It turns out you never were.

  • Ray Van Dune

    On further reflection I remember how Mom cherished that issue of LOOK/ LIFE (?) that had the cover picture of Teddy in a neck brace, like he was somehow the victim! I still get angry thinking about it years later.

    Like most families that lived in the country, we burned our household trash, which is to say, I did the burning. She gave me strict instructions that magazine was not to be burned. But accidents happen…

    When she found the charred fragments of it in the burn pile, she punished me by forbidding me dessert for a week. But while she assumed it was negligence, it definitely was not! And I went from a youngster who loved dessert to one who just lost most interest in it, as I am to this day.

  • Ray Van Dune, wow!

    How old were you?

    I must say you have my respect for your ability at a young age to understand things at such a clear and granular level that transcended your own mothers’ idealistic judgements and take the actions which you took.

    Impressive. You sir have leadership qualities.

    I call that a “Switch On” moment.

  • Did you ever confess your actions to your mom and tell her why you did it?

  • Ray Van Dune

    No – no point in it.

  • And again, you impress me.

    A regular man might many years after the fact have a candid talk with his mom and they might have a laugh about such things of the past.

    An Independant thinker and a natural leader IMO.

  • Alex Andrite

    Yep, as a youth I liked after dinner dessert.
    Usually jello.
    Green with sliced bannans, red jello with pineapple hunks.

    Much Later, I enlisted.

    Navy had great jello stuff.

    Then, later and later, I came to understand,

    “Only The Dead Have Seen The End of War.”

    Such a lovely lady.

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