From the episode:

"BILL MOYERS: America was a racist country in 1948, and when the convention rose to Humphrey's challenge to pass a strong civil rights platform, the rabble-rousing Strom Thurmond of South Carolina led rebellious southern delegates in a walkout to form the Dixiecrat Party behind a platform calling for "the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race.""

I have to confess to a shortfall of imagination.  I cannot imagine how American culture could be so different 60 years ago, and continue to remain so accepting of Strom Thurmond's views years later.

... and the cow goes moo

A cheery soul, eh? But when I was at the Intel Developer Forum, I had a long and interesting conversation with a US analyst who really knows her stuff. She thinks the economies of Western Europe and the US are screwed too - we both agreed on that.

I don't remember 1948, because it was the year before I was born, but I've lived through several recessions during my lifetime. I was amused to see an advert from Citibank in Singapore touting a credit card with the sage words at the bottom - borrow responsibly.

Taking advice from bankers is obviously a bust flush - we've still to see the fallout from last year's credit crunch. But my friend said the worst effect would be on youngsters between 20-25 in the USA and Western Europe. They haven't seen anything but continuing prosperity for year after year. The idea of saving money is an old fashioned notion to the kids, so with unemployment rising in the UK, house prices falling, and inflation, er inflating, they aren't going to know what's hit them. ♦

AT the end of my freshman year of college, back in 1936, I flunked five out of five subjects. Flunking three out of five would have made me eligible to report for an invitation to attend some other college in the fall. But men in this three-out-of-five category sometimes had to wait outside the Dean’s office as long as two hours. Men in my group—some of whom had big dates in New York that same night—weren’t kept waiting a minute. It went one, two, three, the way most men in my group liked things to go.

The particular college I had been attending apparently does not simply mail people’s grades home, but prefers to shoot them out of some kind of gun. When I got home to New York, even the butler looked tipped off and hostile. It was a bad night altogether. My father informed me quietly that my formal education was formally over. In a way, I felt like asking for a crack at summer school or something. But I didn’t. For one reason, my mother was in the room, and she kept saying that she just knew I should have gone to see my faculty adviser more regularly, that that was what he was there for. This was the kind of talk that made me want to go straight to the Rainbow Room with a friend. At any rate, one thing leading to another, when the familiar moment came for me to advance one of my fragile promises really to apply myself this time, I let it go by unused.

Although my father announced the same night that he was going to put me directly into his business, I felt confident that nothing wholly unattractive would happen for at least a week or so. I knew it would take a certain amount of deep, constructive brooding on my father’s part to figure out a way of getting me into the firm in broad daylight—I happened to give both his partners the willies on sight.

I was taken a little aback, four or five evenings later, when my father suddenly asked me at dinner how I would like to go to Europe to learn a couple of languages the firm could use. First to Vienna and then maybe to Paris, he said unelaborately.

I replied in effect that the idea sounded all right to me. I was breaking off anyway with a certain girl on Seventy-Fourth Street. And I very clearly associated Vienna with gondolas. Gondolas didn’t seem like too bad a setup.

A FEW weeks later, in July of 1936, I sailed for Europe. My passport photograph, it might be worth mentioning, looked exactly like me. At eighteen I was six feet two, weighed 119 pounds with my clothes on, and was a chain-smoker. I think that if Goethe’s Werther and all his sorrows had been placed on the promenade deck of the S.S. Rex beside me and all my sorrows, he would have looked by comparison like a rather low comedian.

The ship docked at Naples, and from there I took a train to Vienna. I almost got off the train at Venice, when I found out just who had the gondolas, but two people in my compartment got off instead—I had been waiting too long for a chance to put my feet up, gondolas or no gondolas.

Naturally, certain when-you-get-to-Vienna rules had been laid down before my ship sailed from New York. Rules about taking at least three hours of language lessons daily; rules about not getting too friendly with people who take advantage of other, particularly younger, people; rules about not spending money like a drunken sailor; rules about the wearing of clothes in which a person wouldn’t catch pneumonia; and so on. But after a month or so in Vienna I had most of that taken care of: I was taking three hours of German lesson every day—from a rather exceptional young lady I had met in the lounge of the Grand Hotel. I had found, in one of the far-outlying districts, a place that was cheaper than the Grand Hotel—the trolleys didn’t run to my place after ten at night, but the taxis did. I was dressing warm—I had bought myself three pure-wool Tyrolean hats. I was meeting nice people—I had lent three hundred shillings to a very distinguished-looking guy in the bar of the Bristol Hotel. In short, I was in a position to cut my letter home down to the bone.

I spent a little more than five months in Vienna. I danced. I went ice skating and skiing. For strenuous exercise, I argued with young Englishmen. I watched operations at two hospitals and had myself psychoanalyzed by a young Hungarian woman who smoked cigars. My German lessons never failed to hold my unflagging interest. I seemed to move, with all the luck of the undeserving, from gemutlichkeit to gemutlichkeit. But I mention these things only to keep the Baedeker straight.

Probably for every man there is at least one city that sooner or later turns into a girl. How well or how badly the man actually knew the girl doesn’t necessarily affect the transformation. She was there, and she was the whole city, and that’s that.

Leah was the daughter in the Viennese-Jewish family who lived in the apartment below mine—that is, below the family I was boarding with. She was sixteen, and beautiful in an immediate yet perfectly slow way. She had very dark hair that fell away from the most exquisite pair of ears I have ever seen. She had immense eyes that always seemed in danger of capsizing in their own innocence. Her hands were very pale brown, with slender, actionless fingers. When she sat down, she did the only sensible thing with her beautiful hands there was to be done: she placed them on her lap and left them there. In brief, she was probably the first appreciable thing of beauty I had seen that struck me as being wholly legitimate.

FOR about four months I saw her two or three evenings a week, for an hour or so at a time. But never outside the apartment house in which we lived. We never went dancing; we never went to a concert; we never even went for a walk. I found out soon after we met that Leah’s father had promised her in marriage to some young Pole. Maybe this fact had something to do with my not quite palpable, but curiously steady disinclination to give our acquaintanceship the run of the city. Maybe I just worried too much about things. Maybe I consistently hesitated to risk letting the thing we had together deteriorate into a romance. I don’t know any more. I used to know, but I lost the knowledge a long time ago. A man can’t go along indefinitely carrying around in his pocket a key that doesn’t fit anything.

I met Leah a nice way.

I had a phonograph and two American phonograph records in my room. The two American records were a gift from my landlady—one of those rare, drop-it-and-run gifts that leave the recipient dizzy with gratitude. On one of the records Dorothy Lamour sang Moonlight and Shadows, and on the other Connee Boswell sang Where Are You? Both girls got pretty scratched up, hanging around my room, as they had to go to work whenever I heard my landlady’s step outside my door.

One evening I was in my sitting room, writing a long letter to a girl in Pennsylvania, suggesting that she quit school and come to Europe to marry me—a not infrequent suggestion of mine in those days. My phonograph was not playing. But suddenly the words to Miss Boswell’s song floated, just slightly damaged, through my open window:

“Where are you?

Where have you gone wissout me?

I sought you cared about me.

Where are you?”

Thoroughly excited, I sprang to my feet, then rushed to my window and leaned out.

The apartment below mine had the only balcony of the house. I saw a girl standing on it, completely submerged in a pool of autumn twilight. She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together. The way the profile of her face and body refracted in the soupy twilight made me feel a little drunk. When a few seconds had throbbed by, I said hello to her. She then looked up at me, and though she seemed decorously startled, something told me she wasn’t too surprised that I had heard her doing the Boswell number. This didn’t matter, of course. I asked her, in murderous German, if I might join her on the balcony. The request obviously rattled her. She replied, in English, that she didn’t think her “fahzzer” would like me to come down to see her. At this point, my opinion of girls’ fathers, which had been low for years, struck bottom. But nevertheless I managed a drab little nod of understanding.

It turned out all right, though. Leah seemed to think it would be perfectly all right if she came up to see me. Entirely stupefied with gratitude, I nodded, then closed my window and began to wander hurriedly through my room, rapidly pushing things under other things with my foot.

I DON’T really remember our first evening in my sitting room. All our evenings were pretty much the same. I can’t honestly separate one from another; not any more, anyway.

Leah’s knock on my door was always poetry—high, beautifully wavering, absolutely perpendicular poetry. Her knock started out speaking of her own innocence and beauty, and accidentally ended speaking of the innocence and beauty of all very young girls. I was always half-eaten away by the respect and happiness when I opened the door for Leah.

We would solemnly shake hands at my sitting-room door. Then Leah would walk, self-consciously but beautifully, to my window seat, sit down, and wait for our conversation to begin.

Her English, like my German, was nearly all holes. Yet invariably I spoke her language and she mine, although any other arrangement at all might have made for a less perforated means of communication.

“Uh. Wie geht es Ihnen?” I’d start out. (How are you?) I never used the familiar form in addressing Leah.

“I am very well, sank you very much,” Leah would reply, never failing to blush. It didn’t help much to look at her indirectly; she blushed anyway.

“Schön hinaus, nicht wahr?” I’d ask, rain or shine. (Nice out, isn’t it?)

“Yes,” she’d answer, rain or shine.

“Uh. Waren Sie heute in der Kino?” was a favorite question of mine. (Did you go to the movies today?) Five days a week Leah worked in her father’s cosmetics plant.

“No. I was today working by my fahzzer.”

“Oh, dass ist recht! Uh. Ist es schön dort?” (Oh, that’s right. Is it nice there?)

“No. It is a very big fabric, with very many people running around about.”

“Oh. Dass ist schlecht.” (That’s bad.)

“Uh. Wollen Sie haben ein Tasse von Kaffee mit mir haben?” (Will you have a cup of coffee with me?)

“I was already eating.”

“Ja, aber Haben Sie ein Tasse anyway.” (Yes, but have a cup anyway.)

“Sank you.”

At this point I would remove my note paper, shoe trees, laundry, and other unclassifiable articles from the small table I used as a desk and catchall. Then I would plug in my electric percolator, often commenting sagely, “Kaffee ist gut.” (Coffee is good.)

We usually drank two cups of coffee apiece, passing each other the cream and sugar with all the drollery of fellow pallbearers distributing white gloves among themselves. Often Leah brought along some kuchen or torte, wrapped rather inefficiently—perhaps surreptitiously—in waxed paper. This offering she would deposit quickly and insecurely in my left hand as she entered my sitting room. It was all I could do to swallow the pastry Leah brought. First, I was never at all hungry while she was around; second, there seemed to be something unnecessarily, however vaguely, destructive about eating anything that came from where she lived.

We usually didn’t talk while we drank our coffee. When we had finished, we picked up our conversation where we had left it—on its back, more often than not.

“Uh. Ist die Fenster—uh—Sind Sie sehr kalt dort?” I would ask solicitously. (Is the window—uh—Are you very cold there?)

“No! I feel very warmly, sank you.”

“Dass ist gut. Uh. Wie geht’s Ihre Eltern?” (That’s good. How are your parents?) I inquired regularly after the health of her parents.

“They are very well, sank you very much.” Her parents were always enjoying perfect health, even when her mother had pleurisy for two weeks.

Sometimes Leah introduced a subject for conversation. It was always the same subject, but probably she felt she handled it so well in English that repetition was little or no drawback. She often inquired, “How was your hour today morning?”

“My German lesson? Oh. Uh. Sehr gut. Ja. Sehr gut.” (Very good. Yes. Very good.)

“What were you learning?”

“What did I learn? Uh. Die, uh wuddayacallit. Die starke verbs. Sehr interessant.” (The strong verbs. Very interesting.)

I COULD fill several pages with Leah’s and my terrible conversation. But I don’t see much point to it. We just never said anything to each other. Over a period of four months, we must have talked for thirty or thirty-five evenings without saying a word. In the long shadow of this small, obscure record, I’ve acquired a dogma that if I should go to Hell, I’ll be given a little inside room—one that is neither hot nor cold, but extremely drafty—in which all my conversations with Leah will be played back to me, over an amplification system confiscated from the Yankee Stadium.

One evening I named for Leah, without the slightest provocation, all the Presidents of the United States, in as close order as possible: Lincoln, Grant, Taft, and so on.

Another evening I explained American football to her. For at least an hour and a half. In German.

On another evening I felt called on to draw her a map of New York City. She certainly didn’t ask me to. And Lord knows I never feel like drawing maps for anybody, much less have any aptitude for it. But I drew it—the U. S. Marines couldn’t have stopped me. I distinctly remember putting Lexington Avenue where Madison should have been—and leaving it that way.

Another time I read a new play I was writing, called He Was No Fool. It was about a cool, handsome, casually athletic young man—very much my own type—who had been called from Oxford to pull Scotland Yard out of an embarrassing situation: One Lady Farnsworth, who was a witty dipsomaniac, was being mailed one of her abducted husband’s fingers every Tuesday. I read the play to Leah in one sitting, laboriously editing out all the sexy parts—which, of course, ruined the play. When I had finished reading, I hoarsely explained to Leah that the play was “Nicht fertig yet.” (Not finished yet.) Leah seemed to understand that perfectly. Moreover, she seemed to convey to me a certain confidence that perfection would somehow overtake the final draft of whatever the thing was I had just read to her … She sat so well on a window seat.

I FOUND out entirely by accident that Leah had a fiancé. It wasn’t the kind of information that stood a chance of coming up in our conversation.

On a Sunday afternoon, about a month after Leah and I had become acquainted, I saw her standing in the crowded lobby of the Schwedenkino, a popular movie house in Vienna. It was the first time I had seen her either off the balcony or outside my sitting room. There was something fantastic and extremely heady about seeing her standing in the very pedestrian lobby of the Schwedenkino, and I readily gave up my place in the box-office queue to go to speak to her. But as I charged across the lobby toward her over a number of innocent feet, I saw that she was neither alone nor with a girl friend or someone old enough to be her father.

She was visibly flustered to see me, but managed to make introductions. Her escort, who was wearing his hat down over one of his ears, clicked his heels and crushed my hand. I smiled patronizingly at him—he didn’t look like much competition, grip of steel or no grip of steel; he looked too much like a foreigner.

For a few minutes the three of us chatted unintelligibly. Then I excused myself and got back on the end of the line. During the showing of the film, I went up the aisle several times, carrying myself as erectly and dangerously as possible; but I didn’t see either of them. The film itself was one of the worst I’d seen.

The next evening, when Leah and I had coffee in my sitting room, she stated, blushing, that the young man I had seen her with in the lobby of the Schwedenkino was her fiancé.

“My fahzzer is wedding us when I have seventeen years,” Leah said, looking at a doorknob.

I merely nodded. There are certain foul blows, notably in love and soccer, that are not immediately followed by audible protest. I cleared my throat. “Uh. Wie heisst er, again?” (What’s his name, again?)

Leah pronounced once more—not quite phonetically enough for me—a violently long name, which seemed to me predestined to belong to somebody who wore his hat down over one ear. I poured more coffee for both of us. Then, suddenly, I stood up and went to my German-English dictionary. When I had consulted it, I sat down again and asked Leah, “Lieben Sie Ehe?” (Do you love marriage?)

She answered slowly, without looking at me, “I don’t know.”

I nodded. Her answer seemed the quintessence of logic to me. We sat for a long moment without looking at each other. When I looked at Leah again, her beauty seemed too great for the size of the room. The only way to make room for it was to speak of it. “Sie sind sehr schön. Weissen Sie dass?” I almost shouted at her.

But she blushed so hard I quickly dropped the subject—I had nothing to follow up with, anyway.

That evening, for the first and last time, something more physical than a handshake happened to our relationship. About nine-thirty, Leah jumped up from the window seat, saying it was becoming very late, and rushed to get downstairs. At the same time, I rushed to escort her out of the apartment to the staircase, and we squeezed together through the narrow doorway of my sitting room—facing each other. It nearly killed us.

WHEN it came time for me to go to Paris to master a second European language, Leah was in Warsaw visiting her fiancé’s family. I didn’t get to say good-bye to her, but I left a note for her, the next-to-last draft of which I still have:

“Wien

“December 6, 1936

“Liebe Leah,

“Ich muss fahren nach Paris nun, und so ich sage auf wiedersehen. Es war sehr nett zu kennen Sie. Ich werde schreiben zu Sie wenn ich bin in Paris. Hoffentlich Sie sind haben eine gute Ziet in Warsaw mit die familie von ihre fiancé. Hoffent- lich wird die Ehe gehen gut. Ich werde Sie schicken das Buch ich habe gesprochen uber, ‘Gegangen mit der Wind.’ Mit beste Grussen.

“Ihre Freund,

“John”

Taking this note out of Jack-the-Ripper German, it reads:

“Vienna

“December 6, 1936

DEAR LEAH,

“I must go to Paris now, and so I say good-bye. It was very nice to know you. I hope you’re having a good time in Warsaw with your fiancé’s family. I hope the marriage goes all right. I will send you that book I was talking about, Gone with the Wind. With best greetings.

“Your friend,

“John”

But I never did write to Leah from Paris. I never wrote to her again at all. I didn’t send a copy of Gone with the Wind. I was very busy in those days.

Late in 1937, when I was back in college in America, a round, flat package was forwarded to me from New York. A letter was attached to the package:

“Vienna

“October 14, 1937

“DEAR JOHN,

“I have many times thought of you and wondered what is become of you. I myself am now married and am living in Vienna with my husband. He sends you his great regards. If you can recall, you and he made each other’s acquaintance in the hall of the Schweden Cinema.

“My parents are still living at 18 Stiefel Street, and often I visit them, because I am living in the near. Your landlady, Mrs. Schlosser, has died in the summer with cancer. She requested me to send you these gramophone records, which you forgot to take when you departed, but I did not know your address for a long time. I have now made the acquaintance of an English girl named Ursula Hummer, who has given to me your address.

“My husband and I would be extremely pleased to hear from you frequently.

“With very best greetings,

“Your friend,

“LEAH”

Her married name and new address were not given.

I carried the letter with me for months, opening and reading it in bars, between halves of basketball games, in Government classes, and in my room, until finally it began to get stained, from my wallet, the color of cordovan, and I had to put it away somewhere.

ABOUT the same hour Hitler’s troops were marching into Vienna, I was on reconnaissance for geology 1-b, searching perfunctorily, in New Jersey, for a limestone deposit. But during the weeks and months that followed the German takeover of Vienna, I often thought of Leah. Sometimes just thinking of her wasn’t enough. When, for example, I had examined the most recent newspaper photographs of Viennese Jewesses on their hands and knees scrubbing sidewalks, I quickly stepped across my dormitory room, opened a desk drawer, slipped an automatic into my pocket, then dropped noiselessly from my window to the street, where a long-range monoplane, equipped with a silent engine, awaited my gallant, foolhardy, hawklike whim. I’m not the type that just sits around.

In late summer of 1940, at a party in New York, I met a girl who not only had known Leah in Vienna, but had gone all through school with her. I pulled up a chair, but the girl was determined to tell me about some man in Philadelphia, who looked exactly like Gary Cooper. She said I had a weak chin. She said she hated mink. She said that Leah had either got out of Vienna or hadn’t got out of Vienna.

During the war in Europe, I had an Intelligence job with a regiment of an infantry division. My work called for a lot of conversation with civilians and Wehrmacht prisoners. Among the latter, sometimes there were Austrians. One feldwebel, a Viennese, whom I secretly suspected of wearing lederhosen under his field-gray uniform, gave me a little hope; but it turned out he had known not Leah, but some girl with the same last name as Leah’s. Another Wiener, an unteroffizier, standing at strict attention, told me what terrible things had been done to the Jews in Vienna. As I had rarely, if ever, seen a man with a face quite so noble and full of vicarious suffering as this unteroffizier’s was, just for the devil of it I had him roll up his left sleeve. Close to his armpit he had the tattooed blood-type marks of an old SS man. I stopped asking personal questions after a while.

A few months after the war in Europe had ended, I took some military papers to Vienna. In a jeep with another man, I left Nϋrnburg on a hot October morning and got into Vienna the next, even hotter, morning. In the Russian Zone we were detained five hours while two guards made passionate love to our wrist watches. It was mid-afternoon by the time we entered the American Zone of Vienna, in which Stiefelstrasse, my old street, was located.

I talked to the Tabak-Trafik vendor on the corner of Stiefelstrasse, to the pharmacist in the near-by Apotheke, to a neighborhood woman, who jumped at least an inch when I addressed her, and to a man who insisted that he used to see me on the trolley car in 1936. Two of these people told me that Leah was dead. The pharmacist suggested that I go to see a Dr. Weinstein, who had just come back to Vienna from Buchenwald, and gave me his address. I then got back into the jeep, and we cruised through the streets toward G-2 Headquarters. My jeep partner tooted his horn at the girls in the streets and told me at great length what he thought of Army dentists.

When we had delivered the official papers, I got back into the jeep alone and went to see Dr. Weinstein.

IT WAS twilight when I drove back to Stiefelstrasse. I parked the jeep and entered my old house. It had been turned into living quarters for field-grade officers. A red-haired staff sergeant was sitting at an Army desk on the first landing, cleaning his fingernails. He looked up, and, as I didn’t outrank him, gave me that long Army look that holds no interest or curiosity at all. Ordinarily I would have returned it.

“What’s the chances of my going up to the second floor just for a minute?” I asked. “I used to live here before the war.”

“This here’s officers’ quarters, Mac,” he said.

“I know. I’ll only be a minute.”

“Can’t do it. Sorry.” He went on scraping the insides of his fingernails with the big blade of his pocketknife.

“I’ll only be a minute,” I said again.

He put down his knife, patiently. “Look, Mac. I don’t wanna sound like a bum. But I ain’t lettin’ nobody go upstairs unless they belong there. I don’t give a damn if it’s Eisenhower himself. I got my—” He was interrupted by the sudden ringing of the telephone on his desk. He picked up the phone, keeping an eye on me, and said, “Yessir, Colonel, sir. This is him on the phone…. Yessir…. Yessir…. I got Corporal Santini puttin’ ‘em on the ice right now, right this minute. They’ll be good and cold…. Well, I figured we’d put the orchestra right out on the balcony, like. Account of there’s only three of ‘em…. Yessir…. Well, I spoke to Major Foltz, and he said the ladies could put their coats and stuff in his room…. Yessir. Right, sir. Ya wanna hurry up, now. Ya don’t wanna miss any of that moonlight…. Ha,ha,ha!…Yessir. G’bye, sir.” The staff sergeant hung up, looking stimulated.

“Look,” I said, distracting him, “I’ll only be a minute.”

He looked at me. “What’s the big deal, anyhow, up there?”

“No big deal.” I took a deep breath. “I just want to go up to the second floor and take a look at the balcony. I used to know a girl who lived in the balcony apartment.”

“Yeah? Where’s she at now?”

“She’s dead.”

“Yeah? How come?”

“She and her family were burned to death in an incinerator, I’m told.”

“Yeah? What was she, a Jew or something?”

“Yes. Can I go up a minute?”

Very visibly, the sergeant’s interest in the affair waned. He picked up a pencil and moved it from the left side of the desk to the right. “Cripes, Mac. I don’t know. It’ll be my skin if you’re caught.”

“I’ll just be a minute.”

“Okay. Make it snappy.”

I climbed the stairs quickly and entered my old sitting room. It had three single bunks in it, made up Army style. Nothing in the room had been there in 1936. Officers’ blouses were suspended on hangers everywhere. I walked to the window, opened it, and looked down for a moment at the balcony where Leah had once stood. Then I went downstairs and thanked the staff sergeant. He asked me, as I was going out the door, what the devil you were supposed to do with champagne—lay it on its side or stand it up. I said I didn’t know, and left the building.

Na imagem abaixo você pode ver o computador chamado "Baby", foi feito em 1948, na Universidade de Manchester, e usado na 2ª Guerra Mundial.

No link você confere o restante das imagens

http://tecnologia.uol.com.br/album/20080519_museus_album.jhtm

I wonder how many women are still alive who remember the Sparkle Plenty baby and the doll that was made of her back in the 1940s.

I was seven years old and I was writing a letter to my two girl cousins in Baltimore City. I was so excited about my new doll, Sparkle Plenty, and I wanted cousins Tootsie and Carolyn Via to know. The two cousins were the same age as I was; Carolyn, the younger cousin, has been dead now for eleven years. My cousins' mother, Aunt Gertie, saved the letter and more than fifty years later sent it to me one Christmas. What a surprise it was. The paper is extremely thin and brittle, but fortunately I can preserve it for posterity with my digital camera and a scanner.

The ultimate question remains; is there any posterity who would ever be interested in these "vanishing memories" and long ago, faded scriblings of a little girl growing up on the shores of tidewater Maryland.

The image, Letter to Tootsie, was originally uploaded by barneykin. It is posted here from Barneykin's account.

Visit Neddy's Archives for more of Edna's writings.

    The story of two men from the same neighborhood who go off in different directions in life, one on the right side of the law, and the other on the wrong side of the law.  We have seen this so many times in films such as “Angels with Dirty Faces” with Cagney’s Rocky Sullivan and Pat O’Brien’s Father Jerry Connelly, two Irish kids who grew up together in the slums of New York and took opposite paths in life.  In the 1948 film noir “Cry of the City”, we get the Italian-American version. Marty Roman (Richard Conte) and Candella (Victor Mature) grew up together in New York’s Little Italy. Candella became a cop and Roman a cop killer, a charismatic loser who defies death’s odds.

    Rome escapes from a prison hospital and is pursued by Lt. Candella (Victor Mature) and his partner Lt. Collins played wonderfully by Fred Clark. Rome wants to clear his young girlfriend Teena (a young Debra Paget) of any involvement in a jewel robbery of a Mrs. DeGrazia, an elderly woman who was tortured and murdered. Niles (Berry Kroger), a crooked lawyer threatens to implicate Teena in the crime if Rome does not admit to the jewel robbery and murder to clear the lawyer’s innocent client. What difference does it matter anyway, the lawyer Niles says since he is getting the chair for the cop killing and has nothing to lose.

    Teena is in hiding, however, Rome still fears that Niles will still find and implicate her.  After his escape, Rome heads to Niles office where he finds the stolen jewels in secret compartment in the lawyer’s safe. Niles gives Marty the name of his accomplice, Rose Givens, before he pulls a gun and tries to kill Rome. Marty sticks a switchblade knife through the lawyer’s leather chair stabbing him to death.

    Rome meets up with Rose Givens (Hope Emerson) a sadistic masseuse who is willing to trade for the jewelry by giving Rome money and a way out of the city in exchange. The trade will be made at a subway station where Rome has the jewels secured in a locker. Rome notifies Candella where Givens will be for the pickup, his plan was not to be there but Givens wants Rome at the station fearing a setup. As Givens opens the locker, the police close in on her. There’s a struggle. Givens pulls a gun and a wild bullet hits Candella as he was jumping over a turnstile t assist with the arrest. As the police arrest Givens, Rome manages to escapes and meets Teena in a church where he tries to persuade her to run away with him. Candella, still wounded shows up at the church and tells Teena how everyone who has ever helped Marty has been hurt. That he’s left a trail of physically or emotionally wounded souls. Teena decides not to go with him. As Candella and Rome leave the church, Rome tries to escape but Candella shoots him dead.

    The film is loaded with sleazy low life’s from the sadistic masseuse to the creepy abortionist, to Niles, the crooked lawyer. Directed by Robert Siodmak, the film is well paced maintaining a tense dark moody atmosphere. While not quite on par with some of Siodmak’s other noirish works such as “Crossfire” or “The Killers”. “Cry of the City” provides a realistic look at the squalor of the inner city.

   Richard Conte was riding high in his career when this film was made. He had just completed "Call Northside 777" and also had under his belt "Somewhere in the Night", "A Bell for Adano" and "A Walk in the Sun." Conte was a staple in some of the best noir films of the 1940’s and 1950’s including "Thieves Highway", "Whirlpool" and "The Big Combo." Billed second to Victor Mature in this film Conte not only has the larger part but also steals the show as Marty Roman, a magnetic, woman chasing cop killer.

Victor Mature, an actor of limited talent actually gives a good performance as Candella, the tough yet sensitive cop. The rest of the cast is loaded with many familiar faces including Shelley Winters, as an ex-girlfriend, the previously mentioned Fred Clark, Debra Paget and Hope Emerson who is especially memorable as the sadistic masseuse who almost strangles Rome with ecstatic pleasure.    

Great Moments in Kentucky Basketball pt 1

Great Moments in Kentucky Basketball pt 2

1958 "Fiddlin' Five" National Championship Team

Great Moments in Kentucky Basketball pt 4

(For some reason, I am having trouble uploading part 3.  I'll get it up as soon as possible.)

The Woggles

Gabriel Le Mar

Geyster

J. Holiday

Micatone

Noon

Noze

Odd Nosdam

Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Al Hibbler

Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Sero.Overdose

The Sunshine Underground

The 2 Live Crew

Carman

Ramsey Lewis and Nancy Wilson

Seamo

The Glimmers

Enemy

DJ Muro

Wild Style

Ida Maria

Shane Alexander

Sonny Stitt and Zoot Sims

DJ Kentaro feat. MC Spank Rock

George Lynch and Jeff Pilson

Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters

Natsukawa Rimi

The Dolphins

Tommy Roe

Les Cowboys Fringants

Troop

Al Pitrelli

Chuck Mangione

Keri Noble

Jonas Bering

Mas Ricardo and Dj Gogo

Roberto Ciotti

Southside Dubstars

Sparta Locals

Dj Lbr

The Gil Evans Orchestra

Agnes Chaumie

Alasdair Fraser

Anais

Blitzen Trapper

Blood Stain Child

Butumbaba

Citizen Kain

Natalie Haas

The George Shearing Quintet and Nancy Wilson

Jeans Team

Dj Greg and Lobotomy

Magic Slim and Son Seals and Lonnie Brooks

Oliver Nelson; Bill Evans; Roy Haynes; Eric Dolphy; Paul Chambers; Freddy Hubbard

Psilodump

Taktloss and Jack Orsen

DJ Spen and Osunlade

Yukmouth

A Wilhelm Scream

Aled Jones

Anis

Andreas Henneberg

Ben Weasel and His Iron String Quartet

Bilja Krstic and Bistrik

Bleed the Dream

Chuck E. Weiss

Clara Hill Meets Vikter Duplaix

Factor 60

Hott 22

Hott 22 feat Angie Zee

Jack Penate

Kajiura Yuki

Kid Massive

Kid Massive feat Antoine

Kid Massive Feat Robert Owens

Space Tribe and Friends

The Gladiators

Taktloss

Albert Griffiths and The Gladiators

Umberto Tozzi

Will Bailey

Wonderland Avenue

Digital Base

Clara Hill Meets Atjazz and Charles Webster

Mats and Yoshimi Gustafsson

Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger

Dark Dancer

Black Mamba

Roach Braheny Stearns

Green Court feat. DeVision

Ilija Rudman

Nelson Ned

Dj Timan

Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway

Thrills

Cepia

Maria

Mikey Brooks Meets The Upsetters

Mocky

Obsessions

Oliver Hacke

Space Tribe Vs Electric Universe

Taktloss and Mc Basstard

Yves Larock

Michael Shrieve, Kevin Shrieve and Klaus Schulze

Pete Tong and Superbass

Ramsey Trio Lewis

Trinity and U Brown

Keny Arkana

M Flo Loves Crystal Kay

Tahiti 80

DJ Spen

Baden Powell

Dannii Minogue

Shlomi Aber

Yuzu

Ben Delay and Chris Powell

Da Muzicianz

Discobuster

Extra Golden

Ed Harcourt

Enon

Groove Diggerz

Hector el Father

James Harcourt

Lusine

Paste

Pop Levi

Richard Dinsdale

Shlomi Aber and Itamar Sagi

Shlomi Aber feat. Lemon

Taktloss and The Rifleman

Velvet Girl Feat. Anita Kelsey

Crystal Kay

Cyrus Chestnut

Del Amitri

Eternal Flight

Hiram Bullock

Pat Metheny Group

Danijay

Gabin Dabire

Dj Ugly Cut Aka Taktloss

Tess

Elkie Brooks

The Viceroys

Tukan

Eddie Higgins Trio

Chaz Jankel

Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs And The Stanley Brothers

Bennie Wallace

Brian Aneurysm

Cachao

Cachao Y Su Conjunto

Claire Lynch

Green Court

Gwen McCrae

L'usine

Montana Max

Paragliders

Simple Simon

Trafik

The Interns

Whirlpool Productions

Marshall Jefferson

Hector Bambino El Father

Joe Montana

Moby Feat. Debbie Harry

Oliver Huntemann

Utah Saints

Os Afro

Stephane Grapelli and Baden Powell

Superbass

Antonio Adolfo E No Em Pingo D'Agua

Avus

Brand New Heavies

Esham

Inertia

Michael Franti

Michael Franti and Spearhead

Mikael Delta

Udaye Rana and James Harcourt

Spearhead

Butane

Delano and Crockett

Eddie Higgins Quintet

Owen Spencer

Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas

Deadstring Brothers

Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodrigues

Chip Taylor

Blue Mitchell

George Shearing and Barry Tuckwell

Carmen McRae With George Shearing

Karizma feat. DJ Spen

Mike Patton and Buckethead

DJ Spen and Thommy Davis

Cachao y su Ritmo Caliente

Neon Heights

Kenny Rogers, Edson Hudson

Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians

Zestig jaar geleden werd de D-Mark ingevoerd en prompt sloot de toenmalige Sovejet-Unie de stad af. Deze actie ging de geschiedenisboeken in als 'de blokkade van Berlijn'. Het westelijk deel van de stad werd van juni 1948 tot en met mei 1949 bevoorraad via de luchtbrug.

Geïnteresseerd in dit onderwerp? Doe dan de Luftbrücke-quiz van de Berliner Zeitung. Handig is dat je meteen te weten komt wat wél het goede antwoord is. Dus nog leerzaam ook.

Doe de quiz...

ORA MAHMOUD DARWISH PUO' TORNARE ALLA SUA TERRA

“A 7 anni smisi di giocare e ricordo bene come e perché: in una notte d’estate, quando si usava dormire sui tetti a terrazza delle case, fui improvvisamente svegliato da mia madre e mi trovai a correre con centinaia di contadini in mezzo ai boschi, inseguito dalle pallottole. Non capivo niente, ma dopo un'intera notte di disorientamento e di fughe arrivai con alcuni parenti in un villaggio sconosciuto, abitato da molti bambini. Chiesi ingenuamente: "Dove sono?"  Sentii per la prima volta la parola "Libano".

Quella notte ho messo fine all mia infanzia. Non chiedevo più nulla, ero diventato improvvisamente adulto. In Libano ho imparato –mai lo dimenticherò- che cosa significa la parola ‘patria’: là, infatti, per la prima volta e senza nessuna precedente preparazione, mi trovai a fare la coda allo scopo di ottenere il mio primo pasto all'UNRWA. Il pasto principale consisteva in una razione di formaggio giallo. Là ho imparato parole nuove che hanno aperto davanti  a me una finestra su un mondo nuovo: guerra, notizie dalla patria, profughi, esercito, confini, TERRA. 
Ho cominciato a studiare , a capire e a conoscere la nuova situazione che mi aveva privato dell'infanzia. 
Dopo più di un anno mi dissero che saremmo tornati. Ricordo che quella notte non chiusi occhio dalla felicità. Tornare a casa significava per me la fine del formaggio giallo, la fine della provocazione continua dei ragazzi libanesi che mi insultavano con l'epiteto umiliante di "profugo". 
Il viaggio del ritorno avvenne di notte: strisciavamo pancia a terra io, mio zio e la guida. Dopo tanta fatica mi trovai in un certo villaggio. Che delusione! Non era il mio; casa mia non c'era e non c'erano nemmeno i miei compagni. Continuavo a chiedere: "Quando torniamo a casa?" Le risposte erano tante, nessuna convincente. Non capivo nulla. Non capivo come avesse potuto essere distrutto un villaggio intero. Non capivo come fosse accaduto che l'intero mio mondo fosse sparito, né chi fossero quelli che lo avevano annientato.
Nel nuovo villaggio, Deir al-Asad, frequentai la seconda elementare. Il direttore era molto gentile. Ogni volta che l'ispettore veniva a controllare, ricordo, lui mi chiamava e mi nascondeva in uno sgabuzzino  o in un armadio perché le autorità mi consideravano un "infiltrato". Aggiunsi così una nuova parola al mio vocabolario esistenziale. Anche a casa, ogni tanto, mi dovevano nascondere. Mi era proibito di vivere nel mio proprio paese e per ottenere la carta d'identità israeliana mi imparai a dire che ero vissuto con le tribù beduine del nord del paese, e non in Libano."

"IL LUOGO NON E' SEMPLICEMENTE UNO SPAZIO, E' UNO STATO MENTALE; NE' GLI ALBERI SONO SOLAMENTE ALBERI, MA COSTOLE DELL'INFANZIA."   

"Vuoi andare in Grecia. Chiedi all'autorità competenti del tuo paese di avere un passaporto e scopri che non sei cittadino, perché tuo padre o uno dei tuoi parenti era scappato portandoti con sé durante la guerra della Palestina.  Eri un bambino, allora.  Scopri che chiunque sia scappato dalla guerra in quel periodo poi, ritornano di nascosto, ha perso il diritto alla cittadinanza. Rinunci al passaporto e chiedi un "Laissez Passer". Scopri che non sei residente nel tuo paese e quindi non puoi avere un certificato di residenza. Pensi che sia uno scherzo e ne parli al tuo amico avvocato:  "Eccomi qui: non sono cittadino e non sono residente. Allora, dove e chi  sono?" Sorprendentemente vieni a sapere che la legge è dalla loro parte, e tu devi dimostrare che esisti. Ti rivolgi al Ministero degli interni: "Sono o non sono?"
Dammi un filosofo e gli proverò che esisto. Capisci che filosoficamente esisti ma legalmente no."
-SCRIVO PER MOSTRARE LA MIA ESISTENZA, PER VIVERE, PER ESSERE PRESENTE-

Ancora un saluto a Mahmoud Darwish, grande poeta della terra e dell'ulivo.
La Palestina ti piange. 
 

Potete legarmi mani e piedi

Togliermi il quaderno e le sigarette

Riempirmi la bocca di terra:

La poesia e' sangue del mio cuore vivo

sale del mio pane, luce nei miei occhi.

Sara' scritta con le unghie, lo sguardo e il ferro,

la cantero' nella cella della mia prigione,

al bagno,

nella stalla,

sotto la sferza,

tra I ceppi

nello spasimo delle catene.

Ho dentro di me un milione d'usignoli

Per cantare la mia canzone di lotta.

E' morto il poeta Mahmud Darwish. E' morto poco fa, a Ramallah, un uomo che aveva il potere di far profumare i versi di gelsomino e resistenza. Un resistente, un dolce poeta, un uomo innamorato della sua terra, grande cantore, ultimo romantico di quella striscia di terra fertile e dilaniata. Nato ad Akka nel 1941, pochi anni prima la Nakba, pochi anni prima che la grande tragedia si abbattesse sulla Terra delle arance e degli ulivi.                                                                   

Allah ma'ek usthad ... addio grande maestro, che il suolo di Palestina ti sia dolce letto.
Che almeno ora tu possa rimangiare quelle arance...
PALESTINA LIBERA! PALESTINA ROSSA! 

Ho scritto sulla mia agenda:

amo l’arancio e odio il porto,

 ho aggiunto sulla mia agenda:

al porto mi fermai 

la vita aveva occhi d’inverno,

avevamo le bucce dell’arancio 

e dietro di me la sabbia era infinita!

Giuro, tesserò per te

un fazzoletto di ciglia

scolpirò poesie per i tuoi occhi

con parole più dolce del miele

scriverò “sei palestinese e lo rimarrai”

Palestinesi sono i tuoi occhi,

il tuo tatuaggio

Palestinesi sono il tuo nome,

i tuoi sogni

i tuoi pensieri e il tuo fazzoletto.

 Palestinesi sono i tuoi piedi,

la tua forma

le tue parole e la tua voce.

                                                  Palestinese   vivi,   palestinese   morirai.  ]]> http://johnnytroop.wordpress.com/?p=308 Fri, 01 Aug 2008 06:29:57 +0000 johnnytroop http://johnnytroop.wordpress.com/?p=308 01-08-08 : I begin with my regular complaint about not having any submissions to feature anyone else's old car. I really would like to feature your old car. Anyway, this month's car is from my collection.

The Daimler DE36 was manufactured 1946-53, but only 205 were built during this time frame. All DE36s had custom coachwork. Daimler only built the frame, running gear, engine, radiator, and front end bodywork. Hence, there is no standard DE36. They were not all limousines. Saloons (sedans) and convertibles were built too.

This particular car was Daimler's entry, and section 1 winner, into the 1948 Earls Court motorshow coachbuilding competition. The car features Hooper razor-edge coachwork, executed as a limousine.

The car weighs just shy of 3 tons. The frame and front end bodywork are steel. The main body is aluminium over an ash frame. The twin spare wheel covers are glassfibre.

The engine is a 5.4 litre OHV straight-eight. The transmission is a 4 speed Wilson pre-select of the same size and durability as used in the, Daimler built, Ferret armoured car.

Inside there is an electric glass division, a folding glass topped writing table, a folding side-facing seat, and a drinks cabinet.

This actual DE36 is the car that likely spawned the bustleback 1980-85 Cadillac Seville.

The following text is a passage from the book GREAT MARQUES - CADILLAC by Andrew Whyte. Pages 72-74 discuss the 1980-85 Cadillac Seville:

...In a sense, however, the brand-new Seville for 1980 season was a styling reprise.

At the 1948 London motor show, the first one there after World War 2, self-expression abounded as the British industry struggled toward distant prosperity. The great makers, like Rolls-Royce and Daimler, were still relying on traditional bodywork - often commissioned by the individual customer, or created speculatively for display (a ploy that America had taught the world). Several examples were exhibited by one of the most celebrated of all the long-established (by now Daimler-owned) specialists, Hooper & Co. of London, at that 1948 show. Most eye-catching was a 'three-pus-two' of enormous size, fitted with power-operated convertible top; its body line was accentuated by the completely filled-in rear wheel arch (not such an uncommon thing) and a unique front fender [wing] line that swept through to the tail. This 'Green Goddess' had no rear fender at all: a Hooper hallmark in subsequent years.

More artistically conceived was Hooper's Touring Limousine, which won the top coachwork award. Like the 'Green Goddess', which inspired the famous 'Docker' Daimler show cars, the Touring Limousine was built on the Daimler DE36 straight-8 chassis. It also had sculptured razor-edge lines that blended subtly, to merge to the tail. (This type was exhibited at the 1949 New York show, listed at $22,000!)

The '36' comes from the RAC rating of 36hp. In reality, a car of this weight requires rather more than 36hp! The old RAC ratings calculated horsepower directly from cubic displacement. This worked for the early, low compression, days of motoring, but the system did not reflect changes in engine design and efficiency, especially higher compressions.

This is the oldest car I own, the only British car, and the only car that I co-own with a friend. Ideally, I should either buy him out or we should sell the car.

I mechanically restored the car during 2005 and 2006, but there's still more I would like to do such as replace the smoke stained headliner and refinish the interior wood.

Interestingly, especially given that I am writing this entry in Thailand, the Thai Royal family also owns a DE36. Apparently, Queen Sirikit, the King's deceased sister, loved the car because she could essentially walk into it.

Pictured are buckets of pottery from yesterday, soaking in water for today's pottery wash.  In the background people are just finishing putting away breakfast.

This is more or less all we found today in C4's southern squares - dirt, some rocks, and more dirt.

We've been finding empty bullet shells in one of the C4 squares over the past couple days (none today though - looks like we found all the ones in the square).  Until this morning we assumed that they were from the Six-Day War (1967), but someone from the kibbutz came by and suggested that we look on the bottom of the shells and sure enough the date of manufacture was written there.  Turns out that they're from the War of Independence or earlier - most are from '48 and '47, but there are a few from '41, and even from '38 and '36.

Ramat Rachel, which is right on the edge of Israeli territory, was an important strategic outpost during the War of Independence and the Six-Day War.  The remains of an Israeli bunker are still visible on the hill directly above us, right where the ancient Assyrian fortress tower stood.  Finds from both periods are a potent reminder of the strategic position this hill held for many different peoples over the millennia.

(If only this were America.  Then we could just dig up the 1948 stuff and call it "archeology".)