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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.

 

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Samara Ginsberg – Inspector Gadget for 8 cellos

An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace.

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

4 comments

  • janyuary

    Poor fretless stringed orch critters such as the violin, viola, cello, and double bass, were really designed to play in groups, unlike pianos and guitars, whose natural habitats are acapella.

    What’s the dif between a fiddle and a violin?
    The same dif as between C# and Db!
    *laugh dammit*

  • Jay

    I enjoyed it and listened to her others as well. I thought the best one she did was the Airwolf theme.

  • Diane Wilson

    That was fun! I played cello for 10 years, growing up. I assume she knows about Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras. No. 1 is scored for 8 cellos! No. 5 for 8 cellos and soprano.

    @janyuary, solos and no frets – not a problem. As you learn the instrument, you begin to know where the notes are. You just know. I have trouble comprehending how to play with frets.

  • janyuary

    I always thought of cellos as junior basses, and violas as jumbo violins. I know the viola is tuned in fifths like the violin, and that for violin and double bass, the order of the strings is reversed, on the bass tuned in fourths, lowest is e, then a, then d then g as the highest, and that violin tuned in fifths is lowest g, next d, then a and e … tuned in fifths. I expect cellos, like basses, must be tuned in fourths, lowest to highest. It makes more sense. Cellos are beautiful things played well.

    Diane, I hope you still play or return to it … on a fretless orch critter, learning young it’s like riding a bicycle any age. You always remember how to play, it comes back quickly. Me, frets freak me out. You have to be smart to play an instrument with frets. I don’t think one has to be too bright to play an orch beast!

    The conductor of a well known city symphony once asked me if I knew the difference between a viola and a violin. Before I could frame a literate response, he answered his own question: “The viola takes longer to burn if you throw them both on a bonfire!”

    Ah, musicians humor …

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