5 October 2013

Birthdays
Jesse Eisenberg b. 1983 (Zombieland)
Ehren Kruger b. 1972 (writer, Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon)
Guy Pierce b. 1967 (Iron Man 3, Prometheus, The Time Machine)
Daniel Baldwin b. 1960 (Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Vampires)
Neil De Grasse Tyson b. 1958 (Nova)
Clive Barker b. 1952 (Hellraiser)
Duncan Regehr b. 1952 (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
Karen Allen b. 1951 (Raiders of the Lost Ark)
Jeff Conaway b. 1950 died 27 May 2011 (Babylon 5)
Skip Homeier b. 1930 (Star Trek, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea)
Donald Pleasence b. 1919 died 2 February 1995 (THX 1138, Halloween, Escape from New York)
John Hoyt b. 1905 died 15 September 1991 (The Twilight Zone, Star Trek)

A mix of actors and authors today. Yet again, we have a Babylon 5 actor who is already dead, a very unlucky show. Hoyt was the doctor in the pilot of Star Trek starring Jeffrey Hunter. Karen Allen certainly qualifies in the Cute Girl = Picture Slot, but I went with celebrity astrophysicist Neil De Grasse Tyson instead.

Many happy returns of the day to the living.
 
Movies released
Frankenweenie released, 2012

Prediction: One of the few survivors of the Great Disaster of October 5, 1947 tells, in a series of disjointed flashbacks, of the chaotic horror which engulfed New York City in the wake of an atomic attack which also destroyed most of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, if not the Earth.

Predictor: The Blast by Stuart Cloete, published in Collier's magazine, published in April 1947

Reality: This prediction makes me think about what the mindset must have been just after World War II. The Great War of 1914-18 was thought to be the last great conflagration, but a generation later there was an even bigger war and the consensus was that it was started by a madman. World War II ends with nuclear explosions, destruction so great it was hard to fathom. The United States was the only country with the technology, but no one thought that would last. If wars could only be started by madmen, Joseph Stalin was still around and portrayed by the media as a madman, and it wasn't hyperbole.

And if you weren't worried enough, magazines like LIFE and Collier's presented you with terrifying predictions and The New Yorker in 1946 published John Hersey's detailed account of the destruction of Hiroshima and the stories of six survivors.

I was born ten years after the war ended, and like all boomers I grew up with the knowledge of the nuclear stalemate, but the danger seemed remote. Considering this story comes out the same year as Heinlein's frantic warning, the danger must have felt a lot closer.


Once again, thanks to Paul Brians for his excellent database of fiction and essays about nuclear war.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Sunday usually belongs to Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, but we've had enough depressing stuff this weekend. Instead, we'll go back to 1893 and hear from labor leader T.V. Powderly. 

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!