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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.


The Black Stallion

An evening pause: The central sequence from the 1979 movie, The Black Stallion, when the shipwrecked boy Alec succeeds in taming the shipwrecked Arabian horse. The combination of Carmine Coppola’s music and Caleb Deschanel’s photography in this sequence is unmatched.

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

One comment

  • MICHAEL MILL

    I am happy to see that someone else also has the highest regard for The Black Stallion, but we agree on so many things (libertarian, conservative electronics engineer)that I shouldn’t be surprised.
    As you say it is unsurpassed and probably the Best for the match of pure visual wordless beauty, with music (bravo to pappa Coppola).
    Carroll Ballard (director) seems to know how to capture the magic;
    [see also “Never Cry Wolf” with music by marc isham, and “Wind” just for fun]. Most people don’t know of it or take it seriously..a kids movie!.
    But for visual beauty also…have you seen “The Duellists”…ridley scotts first amazing film, again with beautiful music by Howard Blake! Or John Frankenheimers beautiful and stark black and white first film “The Train”.
    Also “Days of Heaven” by Terrence Malick has many such moments.
    It is wonderful when films can capture visual/musical “magic”.

    Along these lines of beautiful or haunting imagery can i offer a list of favorite films/directors (I’ll bet you will also know/appreciate these)

    david lean:lawrence of arabia (probably the overall best film realized so far…)
    ridley scott:alien,bladerunner, the duellists, legend(faery tale)
    carroll ballard:black stallion,never cry wolf
    john frankenheimer:the train, black sunday, grand prix
    steven speilberg:E.T., close encounters, jaws
    james cameron:terminator,aliens,the abyss,avatar

    also
    william wyler:roman holliday, big country, freindly persuasion
    fred zinneman:the day of the jackel, the sundowners
    william friedkin:the french connection, the excorsist
    sydney pollack:jeremiah johnson, day of the condor
    robert mulligan:to kill a mockingbird

    Do you know of any other such films that capture that visual magic?

    I appreciate your website…be well,
    Michael D. mill

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