For my 50th birthday party this year, I made up a Sixties quiz questions game (with prizes). No one of the 31 guests could "Name the first Russian cosmonaut in space in 1961, the year I was born?"
...except the 17-year-old Russian exchange student staying with friends of mine.
She said her mother had a crush on him. Seems to me he was airbrushed to be more of a rock star than the US astronauts. Also, he was more warm and personable, with that pretty smile of his.
Today is the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, April 12, 1961. I was five weeks old.
This mosaic image of Gagarin in Budapest, Hungary, is made from 470,016 LEGO pieces to celebrate the anniversary.
Speaking of crushes and space flight, since half my answers to the name 10 fictional characters you'd have sex with meme were the characters' creators themselves in disguise, Marz pointed me to this cute song about author lust, "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury." (Thanks, M.)
This version is "censored" uh huh, "for the guys who say that Bradbury is not a Sc*-F* Writer."
Actually, you have to sign in and promise you're at least 18 to watch the original version--it's been flagged as containing material "that may be inappropriate for some users." So bizarre, considering what the average pop video is like.
Can space flight be mentioned without posting Shatner's rendition of "Rocket Man"?
Yes! It can!
I can't bear Bill's musical interpretations---they gives me the "bamboo shoots under the fingernails" shudders.
Instead, here is Stewie from Family Guy doing his Shatner impression:
...except the 17-year-old Russian exchange student staying with friends of mine.
She said her mother had a crush on him. Seems to me he was airbrushed to be more of a rock star than the US astronauts. Also, he was more warm and personable, with that pretty smile of his.
Today is the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, April 12, 1961. I was five weeks old.
This mosaic image of Gagarin in Budapest, Hungary, is made from 470,016 LEGO pieces to celebrate the anniversary.
Speaking of crushes and space flight, since half my answers to the name 10 fictional characters you'd have sex with meme were the characters' creators themselves in disguise, Marz pointed me to this cute song about author lust, "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury." (Thanks, M.)
This version is "censored" uh huh, "for the guys who say that Bradbury is not a Sc*-F* Writer."
Actually, you have to sign in and promise you're at least 18 to watch the original version--it's been flagged as containing material "that may be inappropriate for some users." So bizarre, considering what the average pop video is like.
Can space flight be mentioned without posting Shatner's rendition of "Rocket Man"?
Yes! It can!
I can't bear Bill's musical interpretations---they gives me the "bamboo shoots under the fingernails" shudders.
Instead, here is Stewie from Family Guy doing his Shatner impression:
Lots has happened in l'astronave since I've had a chance to check last. Glad you are freed from the communications project. Always look forward to the burst of play that you emit when that happens.
ReplyDeleteGrrrlll! You blog the way I cook! Frame within a frame reference within a reference story within a story play within a play! I think your end results are consistently better, which is why I have not explored the blogosphere so much since finding your site. I feel nourished and lazy and sated after grazing here and ready to face all the lions and tigers and bears wherever with Kirkness and humor and wit and a reservoir of cultural mirrors. But, with physical food, I still don't mind checkin' out what others are cookin' up or puttin' together--"professionally" or hamishly.
ReplyDeleteCarry On and Feed Our Souls!
In Love and Struggle!
Stefalala
P.s. veriword= WORDST Heh-heh!
Bill just announced the line-up for his upcoming album Seeking Major Tom.
ReplyDeleteIt includes a second go at Rocket Man.
I am hopeful.
My first reaction to your guests' ignorance about Gagarin was "WHAT? How can ANYB..." but then the memory hit me of a children's book about science and technology I read about 160 times when I was little. It said the first living creature in space had been a monkey, when I knew for a fact that it was Laika, the dog, and it didn't mention either Gagarin or the Sputnik satellite. I used to wonder about that (which was healthy; I learnt that books don't necessarily tell you the truth), then I forgot. Only a couple of years ago it struck me that the book had been written and illustrated by an American in the 1970s. Now I instead wonder whether it was censorship - if the author, and other reasonably well-informed adults, knew that the Soviet Union had been ahead of the USA in the space race, but the publishing company didn't think that was something American children should know - or if the fact was indeed so hushed up in the USA that names like Gagarin and Sputnik were only mentioned in documents labelled TOP SECRET.
ReplyDeleteRe: Annika. When I was a kid we'd all heard of Sputnik and knew the Soviets got into space first...but there were no details and we didn't (that I can remember) study it. It was like secret knowledge kids passed around... same with Laika.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 7 I tried to check a kid's book titled something like "What is Communism?" out of the school library. The librarian wouldn't let me take the first time I tried... she must have thought I'd picked it up by accident and would be warped by it. I wanted to know about communism because adults talked about it. She did let me have it the second time I tried to check it out. Amazingly the book was quite fair and balanced and I came away thinking that communism in it's pure intellectual form sounded pretty good... as a kid I was all about sharing. I guess that's what the librarian feared... a child thinking for themselves!
LILL: Hi!
ReplyDeleteSTEF: Having eaten your amazing cooking, that is quite a compliment. Thanks!
There's a cute line in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan where Kirk's love interest, a scientist, sees the dead planet she has brought to life and says,
"Can I cook or can I?"
(She can, but it doesn't keep well.)
MARZ: You listen to it and tell me all about it. His "songs" are like Ceti eels to my ears.
(Actually, only his old ones, I liked his "Has Been" album.)
ANNIKA & BINK:
Yes, I am 100% sure it was US censorship.
Not extreme censorship, like the Soviets covering up that three cosmonauts had tried and died before Gagarin, but the "let us conveniently ignore this" school of obfuscation.
I only know about YG because of my interest in space (due to Star Trek)--I sure didn't learn about him when I was growing up in the 1960s.