Is Roger Rabbit a Sequel to Chinatown?

A few years after Who Framed Roger Rabbit came out, I read an article that suggested that it was a thinly veiled sequel or possibly a remake of Chinatown. At first I thought they were joking, but when I thought about it, I realized that they were probably right. There is a slight chance that this is just coincidence, but its pretty unlikely, the parallels are too close.

In order to see this, here is a high level synopsis of both films, leaving out important subplots in both cases.

Chinatown is the story of an idealist who had worked for the Los Angeles police force and whose partner had been murdered in a part of town where the rules are different. Chinatown. He is never the same. He resigns from the police force and becomes a private detective. He drinks too much. He does the lowest level of detective work, matrimony work, in which one member of a marriage seeks evidence that his or her partner is cheating in order to get a divorce. The movie begins when he is already a detective, and a woman who claims to be Evelyn Mulwray hires him to investigate her husband. In the course of executing his assignment, he becomes aware that the investigation is not what it seems but is part of something much larger. He slowly begins to realize that there is a conspiracy that involves corruption in the city government, corruption in the police force and some sort of criminal activity that involves the water supply to Los Angeles and the merger between Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Someone is murdered and our detective is threatened that if he continues his investigation he will be killed. He has to choose between going along with this or to stand up for what is right at the risk of his life. To do that, he must face his fears and return to that part of town where he was defeated long ago. He returns to Chinatown, confronts his enemy, but he is defeated again and someone else is murdered. Come on Jake, says a friend on the force, who pulls him away from the body. Its Chinatown.

Roger Rabbit is the story of an idealist who had worked for the Los Angeles police force and whose partner had been murdered in a part of town where the rules are different. Toontown. He is never the same. He resigns from the police force and becomes a private detective. He drinks too much. He does the lowest level of detective work, matrimony work, in which one member of a marriage seeks evidence that his or her partner is cheating in order to get a divorce. The movie begins when he is already a detective and Maroon Studios, who is trying to manage a star who is having trouble performing because of rumors about his wife, hires him to investigate the story and see if there is any truth to the rumors.  In the course of executing his assignment, he becomes aware that the investigation is not what it seems but is part of something much larger.  He slowly begins to realize that there is a conspiracy that involves corruption in the city government, corruption in the police force, and an attempt to purchase the mass transit system in Los Angeles in order to destroy it.  Someone is murdered and our detective is threatened that if he continues his investigation he will be killed.  He has to choose between going along with this or to stand up for what is right at the risk of his life. To do that he must face his fears and return to that part of town where he was defeated long ago. He returns to Toontown, confronts his enemy, and defeats him saving both the Red Line and Toontown as well. All the Toons come out to the edge of Toontown and acknowlege that he is their hero and to thank him.

Ok, so the ending is different and there are other differences as well, important differences, that make the films very different.  But its funny how when you line them up like this, they are obviously related to each other.

There is one more parallel that may not be obvious to someone who does not know the history of Los Angeles. Which is that both films describe, loosely, crimes that actually happened and are in fact fundmental to what Los Angeles is today. The movie Chinatown is a loosely fictionallized version of real events that happened in Los Angeles around the time of the merger with the San Fernando Valley. Roger Rabbit is loosely based on the real story of the destruction of mass transit in Los Angeles.  The crimes at the center of both stories were real crimes that famously involved corruption in the Los Angeles city government.   

SIGGRAPH Conference Questions and Issues: What is the Purpose of the Keynote Speech

The annual SIGGRAPH conference is almost here. As I grimly face another SIGGRAPH a series of questions comes to mind. Often these questions repeat every year, sometimes there is a new one or an old goes away, but usually these questions are the same year after year.

I dont know who to address them to. Who should I ask these questions of ? I dont know, but if you know, please tell me and I am sure you will give me good advice.

But first, the disclaimer.

I want to thank everyone who works so hard to put on SIGGRAPH every year. SIGGRAPH is for the most part a volunteer organization, which by definition means most of the people involved do not get paid for their work. And I am sure that things are chaotic and there are many points of view and that people are working hard and with integrity. Therefore, nothing said in this or any other discussion of SIGGRAPH on this blog should be taken as an attack or anything similar to that. I appreciate the efforts of everyone involved and want to take this opportunity to thank them.

The first question(s) are about the Keynote Speaker.

1. How is the Keynote Speaker chosen ?

2. Does the Keynote Speaker have to know anything about computer animation?

3. Should the Keynote Speaker have attended SIGGRAPH at least once in their life?

4. I thought a Keynote Speaker was someone who was senior in the field, someone who had spent a great deal of their career trying to build the field, and/or possibly someone who had something to say about the current state and potential future of our field.

I am sure that Jane McGonigal is an interesting person. It may even be that SIGGRAPH should give her a platform to speak to us. Maybe Jane is also qualified to be our Keynote speaker, after all, since I have no clue how these speakers are chosen, it is impossible for me to judge if she should be the Keynote speaker.

And then finally, since SIGGRAPH is wildly over scheduled, is there a way to view the Keynote speech after it is given, possibly remotely. Ideally I would want to do that for all Keynote speeches given at SIGGRAPH in the past as well.

Does anyone know the answer to these questions ?

Does anyone know who I should be asking these questions of ?

Does Zardoz Speak About Gun Control ?

My friend Ken Cope brought up the idea recently that anti gun control legislation activists might have been influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by John Boorman's brilliant and under-recognized 1974 masterpiece Zardoz.

[Addendum: I forgot to mention that this film seems to have been photographed in 70 mm.  This is particularly noticeable in the opening sequences as Zardoz drifts over the countryside.]

Zardoz speaks to you, his chosen ones.

Who could forget Sean Connery running around in a bright red jock strap? Or his pioneering role in cinema as a male sex-toy and lust-object for the various women protagonists of this ground-breaking film? Or of the incredibly stupid hair styles and costume choices of the citizens of the Eternal City?

There is one scene at the beginning of the film that is particularly memorable.   In this famous scene, God manifests himself as a large flying stone head which levitates around the countryside making house calls to the various tribes, spouting both wisdom and ammunition.

God says (in a slightly abbreviated form)

               Zardoz speaks to you, his chosen ones.

               You have been raised up from brutality to kill the Brutals, who
               multiply and are legion.  To this end, your God gave you the gift
               of the gun, the gun is good !

               The penis is evil !   The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life to
               poison the earth with a plague of men, as once it was.   But the gun
               shoots death and purifies the earth of the filth of the Brutals.  Go
               forth and kill.

               Zardoz has spoken.

When I wrote Ken to ask him to check whether I had accurately represented his ideas here, he wrote: "I would just say that Boorman was an acute observer of the human condition, for various values of "human," and also note that correlation is not causation."

That's too bad, it would be much more fun if this faction had actually been inspired by Zardoz.

Check out these perfect 70s hair styles and outfits.   Are they dressing for the disco?

The Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbGVIdA3dx0

The Wikipedia Page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zardoz

The Baron, the Novitiate and the Submarine in American Musical Theatre

This story is going to need a little buildup before it starts going, so please bear with me.   It will all become clear, eventually.

As cynical members of our modern society, we have learned through experience that many of the things we are told through the media and education system are at best simplifications, and often just outright fabrications. "The winner writes the history", and it is usually, nearly always, a self-serving version. But every once in a while you come across a story that you just know has to be a fabrication, completely implausible, and utterly improbable. Oh come on, people, you think, give me a break.

The particular work I am referring to is a well-known play by Rodgers & Hammerstein, "The Sound of Music", which later became a successful film. It has been said that society can be divided into two very broad categories, those who like Rodgers & Hammerstein and those who find them a little hard to take. I fall into the latter category for the most part and never much cared for "The Sound of Music", even though it is beautifully photographed in TODD -AO, has some very entertaining songs and, of course, Julie Andrews is completely perfect.

The problem is the plot. Not even a child could believe this story. "An Austrian naval officer, a war hero and a widower, has become alienated from his life and his family after the death of his wife. A young woman who is training to be a nun from a local convent is hired to be the teacher of his seven children who are growing up without their mother. But as it turns out, all of them, from the Baron down to his youngest child, knows how to sing. He falls in love with this teacher, they start singing together, the family is reunited, they become internationally known as a folk singing troupe, the Trapp Family Singers, and they have to run for their lives when the National Socialists annex Austria in 1938. They live happily ever after."

Oh please, spare me, I thought. Obviously this was some sort of pleasant fantasy, a structure that one could naturally hang some songs onto, have a romance, a little danger, a happy ending. Austria doesn't really even have a navy, being a landlocked country (just showing my regrettable ignorance of history at the time) and it never occurred to me in a million years that this story might be even partially true, let alone true in all major points. In fact, the story is not only true, its possible they even toned it down a little bit.

There the matter would have remained except that I believe that as a well-rounded member of our society,  I have a responsibility to study the fascinating history of submersibles and semi-submersibles with diligence. What could be more relevant and helpful for living in our modern and complicated world than the study of this technology? And what else could lead to such an improvement in character and morals?

Many navies and individuals contributed to the invention of the submarine from the mid-19th century on, including people from  England, Germany, France, Austria, Russia, Italy, Ireland, North America and others. Their professions included at least one priest, a well-known writer of science-based fiction (Jules Verne), a shoemaker, a wagon-maker, an army officer, many naval officers, a professor of mathematics and an innkeeper. Important supporters in the very early days, when no one was sure if this idea would ever really work, include the Irish Republican Army and the Confederate States of America.  Robert Fulton, an artist and inventor living in Paris, proposed the concept of the submarine to Napoleon and was awarded a commission to study the idea. 

Patience, we are almost there.

Then one day I came across an aspect of this story that had been completely unknown to me.  One of the major participants in WW1 had been the Austro-Hungarian Empire, of course.   For some reason it had never occurred to me that they had a navy, but they did.  Although it was small, it was apparently well-regarded and they had looked closely into the submarine and built a very small fleet to explore the idea.   Although their fleet was small, and their equipment primitive, they were led by men with spirit and intelligence.  And they had an impact, apparently.   One of their captains was particularly successful, invented many techniques which would later be used by all sides in WW2, and famous for being the first submariner to sink a major enemy surface combatant by moonlight.   He was from a family with a history of service to the emperors of the Austro-Hungarian empire and was a member of their nobility.   A dashing and handsome submarine commander, he was decorated and promoted, and his name was Georg Ritter von Trapp.

"von Trapp", I thought, "Hmm, that name seems familiar somehow. How do I know that name?"

So I looked him up, and as I read, my blood ran cold with horror.  It was all true.  All of it.

OK, so it wasn't ALL true, but it was mostly all true.   Rodgers & Hammerstein had, it turned out, dramatized the departure from Austria and in reality it was no where near as exciting.

I was devastated by the realization that Hollywood had come very close to accurately portraying this story.  If you can't trust Hollywood, of all institutions, to lie to you, who can you trust?

Those of you who have had enough of this story can stop right here.  Those who want the details of this heartwarming and improbable story should read on.

Captain von Trapp had married for love a woman from England named Agathe Whitehead, the daughter of the man who had invented the torpedo in England. She had come to Austria to commission von Trapp's first command, the U-Boat U-6, fell in love and married him. They had seven children. After the war, one of those children became ill with scarlet fever and Agathe caught it from her and died. Georg Ritter von Trapp (the "Ritter von" is the title of nobility and means "knight") was unemployed and unemployable because after the war, the Austro-Hungarian empire was broken up and Austria was not allowed to have a navy. Thus von Trapp was a man without a profession. To make matters worse, the family fortune had been lost in a bank failure during the depression after the war. He had a very sick child, and many other children, who did not have a mother. He was financially devastated and heartbroken at the loss of his wife. He moved his family into the top floor of their house, and rented the rooms below to students to support his family. Eventually, since his sick child could not attend school easily, he decided to hire a tutor from the local convent, and educate his family at home.

You know what happens next. 

The teacher he hired was Maria Augusta Kutschera who had been born on a train and was an orphan by the time she was seven years old. She had graduated from the State Teachers College for Progressive Education in Vienna at the age of 18. She entered Nonnburg Abbey in Salzberg as a postulant intending to become a nun.

She lived with the family and became very attached to her students.  Georg and Maria fell in love.  As part of a well-rounded education, this being Austria between the wars, music was part of the children's education.  Apparently they were talented.  When Georg made an honest women out of Maria, in other words, when they got married, their first child arrived two and a half months later.   If you know what I mean.   They had three children together, making a grand total of ten children.

Somehow the well known German soprano, Lotte Lehmann, had heard the family sing and suggested that they should start performing. The Austrian Chancellor heard them on radio and invited them to come to Vienna and give a performance. They were able to get a booking manager and agent and toured parts of Europe, the United States and Canada.

In a review, the New York Times said

There was something unusually lovable and appealing about the modest, serious singers of this little family aggregation as they formed a close semicircle about their self-effacing director for their initial offering, the handsome Mme. von Trapp in simple black, and the youthful sisters garbed in black and white Austrian folk costumes enlivened with red ribbons. It was only natural to expect work of exceeding refinement from them, and one was not disappointed in this.

To conclude the story, the National Socialists offered von Trapp a commission in the German Navy, but he declined.  The way the Austro-Hungarian empire was broken up, the region that von Trapp was born in was now a part of Italy and thus he had Italian citizenship.  The movie has them dramatically hiking out of Austria through the mountains, but in real life they took a train like normal people.   Eventually they settled in Vermont and started a lodge which is still in business. Their descendents live in this country, so far as I know.

In conclusion, I think that this anecdote clearly demonstrates the importance of the study of the history of submarines, and its value in understanding American musical theatre.


Pictures of Captain Georg, Maria and one of his submarines.

______

The lodge that Georg and Maria started when they came to this country is still in business, see  http://www.trappfamily.com/story


For more on the history of submarines in the navy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, see
http://uboat.net/history/wwi/part4.htm


Captain Ritter von Trapp wrote a short book on some of his experiences as a captain of a submarine. A Google Books preview is at
http://books.google.com/books/about/To_the_Last_Salute.html?id=8ADDLyBL500C

New Trailer for 2001: A Space Odyssey

A new trailer for 2001: A Space Oddity in order to emphasize the action sequences.  I give it an A for concept and maybe a B+ for execution.

Thanks to Sally Syberg for recommending this.

http://youtu.be/ZSGsh9so_dA

Visual Effects Humor and the Titanic Alternate Endings That Never Existed

Generally speaking, visual effects people are more deadpan than animation people. Animation people are generally more wacky. For example, animators may make funny noises as they eat their dinner (a salt shaker may become a dive bomber, for example) or funny noises as they leave a room (whoosh !) and no one would even notice. Visual effects people are generally more serious than that and rarely make funny noises.

The following is a story from the time when Titanic was finishing post-production which means it was the summer of 1997.

Visual effects can take a long time to do when compared to the schedules of other parts of the motion picture production process. There are a variety of reasons for this, but in general visual effects shots are awarded to facilities far in advance of the release of the film. But sometimes, for various reasons, effects are awarded at what seems to be the last minute, very near the release date of the film. Although this is often perceived as a mistake, it may not be. In the case of Titanic, it was not a mistake.

Most of the effects for Titanic were being done by Digital Domain, the effects studio that Jim Cameron had helped to found. But there were effects that could only be awarded until after sequences of the film had been edited, because they involved adding the "cold breathe" that people make outside when its cold, and that could not be done until they knew which of the many shots they were going to use. They had originally hoped to be able to get that breathe naturally by keeping the set very cold, but it turned out that was not practical down in Mexico, so they just moved on and planned to fix it later. Jim is well-known as a perfectionist, and he worked on those sequences as long as he could, and then released them to effects. In any case, Digital Domain was quite busy getting the primary effects shots of the film done, so these other shots generally went to other facilities.

[Note: Richard Hollander of VIFX/R&H tells me that all these shots were done by VIFX and that there were a lot of them and that, yes, they were always planned.]

Although there was a perfectly good reason why these shots were added when they were, it was a lot of work, and individual technical directors often like to complain, and to brag, so they did. And the field is very competitive, so maybe people were taking shots at Digital Domain (ha, they couldn't do this so we had to, that sort of thing, as juvenile as it may sound).

This seemed like a good opportunity for a joke. At various industry events, when I would run into my peers, I would say that I had heard that these shots were part of a new and very secret alternate ending to the movie.  The studio executives had become worried,  they were spending a tremendous amount of money on this movie, if it bombed, their careers were probably over.  The director was still pushing for a historically correct ending which was a very dramatic, but down, ending.     They thought it was worthwhile to prepare an alternate cut of the movie with an upbeat ending, and see how well the two versions tested against each other.  After all, they did not want to go down with the ship, so to speak.

In this new ending, the Titanic would still hit the iceberg, they couldn't change that, but our hero breaks in at the last minute and turns the ship, so it only partially hits the iceberg. and they use most of the footage of water breaking in and so forth, so some people still die, but the ship manages to make it back to NY and our heroes live happily ever after. And all of these extra shots that you hear about all over town [well you did hear about them all over town, even if they were actually being done at one facility, VIFX...], that is mostly the big crowd shots at the end as the Titanic limps into NY harbor and everyone cheers. Yea ! We made it!

My colleagues in the glamourous and rewarding visual effects industry would just look at me. You could see them thinking.  On the one hand, the story is ridiculous.  On the other hand, we all know some pretty crazy things that have happened.  After a while they realize this has to be a joke, and they would say something like "This is a funny joke, right ?"

I would like to think that I had planted a seed of doubt and that they were wondering if the studio might actually do this.    Demi Moore had just done a version of "The Scarlet Letter" in 1995 and in her version there was a happy ending, so if Hester Prinn could have a happy ending, why not Titanic?

Yes it was a joke, I would admit. "Very funny", they would say. And glare at me.

[I don't think they had to think very hard before they rejected my story, but as I mentioned above, visual effects people are generally quite deadpan and it can be hard to tell...]

Did Escaped Nazis Settle in Richmond, Virginia ?

Did escaped Nazis from Germany secretly settle in Richmond, Va and run a college prep school after the war?

That may not sound very likely at first glance but read on, there is some history here.

The two top college prep schools in Richmond, Va when I lived there were St. Christopher's and The Collegiate School (for boys and girls).  The girls school goes way back, to the 1920s, but the boys school was more recent.  To put things in context, Tom Wolfe (e.g. The Right Stuff, From Bauhaus to Our House, etc) attended St. Christopher's across town and famously wrote about basketball games they used to play against Collegiate.  I attended the Collegiate School for Boys.

Collegiate was a non-denominational protestant Christian school which in practice generally meant Presbyterian, Episcopalian (which is our version of the Church of England, by the way) and a few others.    I was, I think, one of the three Jews in the school, in the classic Virginian, assimilated, reform sense,  for what that is worth.   But wait, this is leading up to something.  Every morning, school began with a brief chapel service, the Lord's Prayer and an inspirational talk of some sort.   And of course the school song, Hail Collegiate.

   Hail Collegiate, We Thy Children
   This Libation, Here we Pour
   As we learn to read thy vision
   Something, something, something, something, something, something, something

   Hail Collegiate !

The music, I was told, was composed in Austria about a hundred years ago, and adopted by the Girls school with different words in the 1920s.  Well, that turns out not to be exactly true, but it is not too bad.  The music was composed by Joseph Haydn of all people in 1792, originally to the words of the poem "God Save Franz the Emperor", but later to the words of the poem written in 1841 by von Fallersleben.  It became the national anthem of Germany in the post WW1 Weimar republic in 1922.   The third verse of his poem, "Las Leid der Deutschen", is still the national anthem of a united Germany.

The song had a role in the national unification movement of post-WW1 Germany which one can argue was an important part of what led to WW2 (WW2 started after a series of annexations by Germany  of primarily German speaking regions of Europe that were part of the territories of non-German speaking countries.  Its extension into Poland caused England & France to honor their treaty obligations and declare war on Germany). Wait, we are getting to the good part.

So I don't know any of this history, I just know I had been trying to sing, badly, this song while I am trying to wake up for many years now, every morning, and it is not my favorite thing to do.

Then one night, on late night TV, I see a documentary about the rise of the National Socialism  in Germany, and of course there is a scene of marching soldiers, with National Socialism banners, and they are singing the national anthem,   "Deutschland Uber Alles".

    Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles !
    Uber Alles in der Welt !
    Wenn es stets zu Schutz und Trutze
    Something, something, something, something, something, something, something !

    Deutschland !  Deutschland !

And just in case you have not guessed the punchline yet, the song that the Nazi's are goosestepping to is of course my school song, but in German.

"Holy Batshit !", I said to myself, "Of course !  That explains everything!"

"Nazi war criminals must have escaped from Germany after World War 2 and came to Virginia and ran a prep school!   How they must laugh as they have hundreds of kids sing the Nazi national anthem every morning!  What fools we are!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEdoLKknCi0&bpctr=1343234207&skipcontrinter=1

[revised 6/26/2013]

Orion Slave Girls, Makeup Effects, Sexism and Color Timing

Color timing has always been a part of the film making process, from the earliest days of color technology.  It is the process used to see to it that the final film has a consistent look from shot to shot and the color palette of the film overall matches the vision and goals of the director and cinematographer, to the extent the technology, budget and schedule allows.

In recent years, the extremely arcane early forms of color timing has been replaced by digital processes, including the "digital intermediate" and the uses and abuses of the 3D color lookup table, a tool that can be used for both good and evil, which is true for pretty much all tools.

But in earlier, more primitive days, the process of color timing was less exact and had more issues because it generally involved sending tests and film to the lab and seeing the results the next day.  But the system worked, it worked well, and some of the most fabulous films in the history of cinema used these now archaic processes.

There are some funny stories, however, and this is one of my favorites.  To understand the story, you have to know something about makeup effects, some of the reasons they are so helpful to the film making process, and also something about the difficult schedules associated with episodic television.

Makeup effects are a form of special effects that are based on the theatrical art of makeup.  Although the technologies behind it continue to advance with new materials and new approaches, it has a history that goes back directly to the earliest days of stage.  Most of the use of makeup is not for special effects however.   All actors seen on stage or on film wear makeup to make them look natural under the very unnatural lighting and to achieve certain effects depending on the distance of the audience and, for film, the effects of photography on the end results.   An actor that did not wear makeup would often look incorrect and take away from the story.  This is a very important part of the normal film making process.

Less often used, although it seems to be used a lot these days, are makeup effects which attempt to achieve something outside the normal process of makeup.  The classic examples are vampires, with their teeth, or Vulcan's with their pointy ears, and so forth.  Pretty much all of the classic villains of Batman have used makeup effects of one type or another to achieve what is special about their character.  One of my favorite characters in the recent Guardians of the Galaxy is a young actress whose outfit seems to be blue makeup. One of the great advantages of makeup effects is that once they have been photographed, and then color timed, you are (hopefully) done.  No more post production necessary or that is the idea.

Makeup effects in the service of the creation of character from Guardians of the Galaxy

But films and television did not always have so many green or blue women, and people were not always so used to seeing them, and this is my favorite story about such things.

A long time ago, episodic television was shot, and still may be shot, on a brutal schedule.  Each hour long episode needed to go into production with a script, and be completed in one month, on film, which was then broadcast.   There were usually four episodes in production at any one time.  This usually meant that each episode had one week on the stage with the actors for shooting and three weeks for post production.  There were exceptions to this rule, and the process made allowances for special episodes and special problems.  But it could not do so indefinitely, and when they screwed up they had to repeat an episode or do something else they did not want to do, and it was a big deal.

An episode in the third season of the first incarnation of Star Trek involved a very well known young actress and dancer, Yvonne Craig.  Although best known for her role as Batgirl in the original TV series, she was also an alumnus of the Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo, and among other things, the famous green exotic dancer and slave girl in an episode of Star Trek.  This story comes from what happened when they shot that episode.

Presumably they would get her in early, spend hours putting on her makeup, shoot her few scenes, and then move on.  But when they got dailies back the next day, to their dismay they came back wrong.  She was not green, she was some kind of weird yellow.  Unusable.   So they called her in the next day, went through the makeup process, shot her scenes and sent her home.  And it came back from the lab a weird yellow.

Now at this point we are nearing disaster.  The episode can not keep on just shooting as long as it wants, it pretty much has to wrap within a day or two.  But someone got the bright idea to call the lab and ask if anything unusual was going on that might have caused this.  Perhaps that is the first thing they should have done, in hindsight, but it did not occur to them, or so the story goes.

And it turned out that the lab was convinced that the green dancer they were seeing was some sort of mistake they had made in processing, that of course the show would not have shot a nearly naked woman in full-body green makeup, and so they color timed the result to make it looks as much like flesh tones as they could and hoped it would be good enough. Today of course we would not blink an eye at green exotic dancers who are also Orion slave girls, but those were a more innocent time.

Anyway, the problem was solved, and one of the more famous sequences involving Star Trek's sexist exploitation of women was famously born.

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_Craig

revised 6/8/2015

The Ox-Cart Library

Although of course we can always use another movie about giant robots beating the shit out of each other, which is a timeless theme in art, but reading about the history of the Latter Day Saints movement, I came across this little gem of regional history.

Admittedly, it needs to have a romantic interest of some sort but I am sure Hollywood is capable of tacking on some shoddy and stereotyped romance without any problem.

And knowing the history of the biped mammals, I am sure that sex, as distinct from romance, fits into this somehow.

Without further ado, here is the fascinating story of the "The Oxcart Library", from Wikipedia.

The Oxcart Library is considered to be the first circulating public library in the history of the Western Reserve. The library is located in the city of North Olmsted, Ohio.

Captain Aaron Olmstead, a wealthy sea captain in the China trade out of New England, was one of 49 investors who formed a syndicate in 1795 to purchase a major part of the Western Reserve from Connecticut. He became the owner of thousands of acres from his $30,000 share of the $120,000 total land deal. The land encompassed the areas now known as North Olmsted, Olmsted Falls and Olmsted Township. At the time of the purchase, the area was known as Lenox. Olmsted traveled west on horseback to visit the land in 1795, but never settled here. He died on 1806. In 1826, Aaron's son, Charles Hyde Olmstead, offered to donate 500 books from his father's personal collection in Oxford, Connecticut, if the residents of Lenox agreed to change the name of the area to Olmstead. They did.

The books traveled by oxcart over 600 miles of rugged terrain. They were individually covered with blue paper and arrived partly stained with mud and rain. The books were housed in various families' homes and circulated to residents in the area.

Around 150 of the original books can be found in a display case in the North Olmsted Branch Library. The blue paper covers remain on many of the books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ox-Cart_Library

Ha ! Nevermind

All controversial recent posts deleted.  They never happened in fact.

We now return to our eclectic mix of sarcastic film criticism, classics, cold war documentation, and so forth.

It was just a phase I was going through.

I hope.

MW