In the spring of 1963 Studs Terkel introduced Chicago radio listeners to an up-and-coming musician, not yet 22 years old, “a young folk poet who you might say looks like Huckleberry Finn, if he lived in the 20th century. His name is Bob Dylan.” (Listen to the interview below.)
Dylan had just finished recording the songs for his second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, when he traveled from New York to Chicago to play a gig at a little place partly owned by his manager, Albert Grossman, called The Bear Club. The next day he went to the WFMT studios for the hour-long appearance on The Studs Terkel Program. Most sources give the date of the interview as April 26, 1963, though Dylan scholar Michael Krogsgaard has given it as May 3.
Things were moving fast in Dylan’s life at that time. He was just emerging as a major songwriter. His debut album from the year before, Bob Dylan, was made up mostly of other people’s songs. The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, which was finished but hadn’t yet been released, contained almost all original material, including several songs that would become classics, like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and “A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall.” Within a few months Dylan would make his debut at the Newport Folk Festival and perform at the historic March on Washington. But when Dylan visited WFMT, it’s likely that many of Terkel’s listeners had never heard of him. In the recorded broadcast he plays the following songs:
Farewell
A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall
Bob Dylan’s Dream
Boots of Spanish Leather
John Brown
Who Killed Davey Moore?
Blowin’ In The Wind
Dylan tells Terkel that “A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall” is not about atomic fallout, even though he wrote the song in a state of anxiety during the Cuban missile crisis. “No, it’s not atomic rain,” Dylan says, “it’s just a hard rain. It isn’t the fallout rain. I mean some sort of end that’s just gotta happen…. In the last verse, when I say, ‘the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,’ that means all the lies that people get told on their radios and in their newspapers.”
If American Land were Distributed the way American Wealth Is
The Congressional Budget Office confirms that the top 1% has tripled its income since 1979, while the upper middle class has increased its wealth much more modestly, and the rest of the country has seen only a small gain.
Just to be clear, the 1% are about 3 million, the 9% are about 27 million, and everyone else crowded into that little torrid strip is about 278 million.
The 2013 Super Bowl advertisement for Ram Trucks featuring excerpts from a 1978 Paul Harvey address to the Future Farmers of America Convention.
So God Made a Farmer - Paul Harvey
And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer.
"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it." So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain'n from 'tractor back,' put in another seventy-two hours." So God made a farmer.
God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place. So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church.
"Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life 'doing what dad does.'" So God made a farmer.
WATCH: Michelle Obama mom-dances with Jimmy Fallon for ‘Let’s Move’
First lady Michelle Obama showed off her sense of humor and her dance skills on her appearance on theLate Night with Jimmy Fallonshow Friday night.
In a sketch airing before the first lady’s sit down interview with Fallon, the two–with Fallon in a wig and his best mom outfit–performed “The Evolution of Mom Dancing,” a spoof on the wildly popular “Evolution of Dance” video which went viral and has been viewed more than 200 million times on YouTube.
Ever wonder how major-league baseballs are manufactured? Find out by checking out this episode of the Discovery Channel's "How It's Made" television series.
The super rich love to attend film festivals, and while they can afford to fly down to the on the French Rivera to witness a rich movie-watching experience, the rich love to spend on getting the cinematic experience right in their backyard, besides the pool. We have earlier told you about the luxurious private outdoor theaters and waterproof TV's for a plush backyard, but Porsche Design Studio has now introduced the world’s largest outdoor television under “201 C SEED,” a brand formed in collaboration with the expertise of Global Bright Group, to score above the rest.
201 C SEED TV
The 201-inches waterproof LED screen is integrated in a flattened piece of concealed black metal in a circular hole in the ground. It emerges from the ground silently and unravels its magic all in 15 seconds, and the screen unfolds into seven panels in a further 25 seconds for complete set-up. "The performance begins when C SEED magically appear from the ground, like a kinetic sculpture," says Porsche Design Studio.
The bigger picture experience comes complete with extremely bright images, which are clearly viewable even in direct sunlight, 270-degree rotation, three-way audio system including 15 speakers and wireless remote control.
The 201 C SEED can be installed as a monolith in a grassy area or terrace installed according to custom needs. The monstrous outdoor screen will be available on order from September 2011 starting at about $810,000.
The first track from Airs' Moon Safari album, accompanied by scenes from a video shot from a streetcar traveling down Market Street in San Francisco in 1905.
Before the earthquake/fire of 1906 destroyed the area. Remarkable footage of the turn of the century lifestyles in California.
Pictures: San Francisco's main thoroughfare as seen from the front window of a moving Market Street cable car, before the downtown area was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire. This unusual record has been called the first "structural film" because it follows exactly the externally imposed structure of the car ride.
This version was transferred from a new 35mm print made from a restored 35mm negative, which was made from 1906-era 35mm print. The frame-roll problem seen in other versions has been fixed.
Here is a post from the SFGate blog that explains some of the history of this film and how film scholar David Kiehn discovered that it was in fact produced in 1906 (just before the quake and fire), not 1905:
The video below is titled “A Trip Down Market Street” and it’s true to its name, a 13 minute trip from 8th Street down Market Street to the Ferry Building just days before the great quake of 1906. You’ll see a vibrant metropolis full of cars, bikes, horses, cable cars and people traversing Market St. The detective story behind the film clip is almost as interesting as what it contains. (Please note that there are rolling frames and a slight stall in the early part of the film which end at the 1 minute 40 second mark.)
The film was shot by early San Francisco film innovators the Miles Brothers and has been widely available through the Library of Congress and You Tube (which has a novel version set to an Air soundtrack) and was originally dated to the fall of 1905 but recently local author and silent film historian David Kiehn made some surprising discoveries about its date. He had seen “A Trip Down Market Street” many times over the years but it was only around 2005 that he managed to get ahold of a 16mm print which made him “all the more curious about it.” The Library of Congress had researched and dated the filming to September or October of 1905. Per Kiehn, “some thought it was shot earlier in 1904 but since the Library of Congress had narrowed it down to that point everyone thought that it was shot in 1905.” Read the Library of Congress’ description of the film’s date here.
At first Kiehn was just trying to confirm the 1905 shoot date so he thought “gee, there were 5 newspapers in San Francisco at that time so somebody must have written about it.” He dug through the San Francisco Public Library’s collection of microfilm starting with August of 1905 and running through October 1905. He went “page by page and couldn’t find a single thing about it so I looked at the film again more closely and I noticed that there were puddles in the cavities by the rails on the street and especially at the end of the film autos drive through puddles splashing water.” So, he went back to the papers and checked the weather reports for the period only to find that September and October of 1905 were “as dry as a bone.”
Kiehn took a look at the angle of the sun and narrowed the time of year to late March or April 1906. Then he examined the buildings along Market Street, the state of construction narrowed the window down to late 1905 or before the earthquake in 1906. To tie all these pieces together he “went back to the papers to look for information on filming and weather reports. In March and April, especially late March 1906, there was a lot of rain but there weren’t any references to any filming being done.” But, “being a film historian I then realized that there was a theatrical magazine where filmmakers of the day advertised their films called the New York Clipper. The San Francisco Public Library coincidentally has that magazine on microfilm so I looked at late March and April of 1906.”
In the April 28th edition he saw an ad by the Miles Brothers for two films that they were just releasing called “A Trip down Mount Tamalpais” and “A Trip down Market Street.” The ad appeared ten days after the April 18, 1906 earthquake but Kiehn notes that this wasn’t someone playing games with history. Since print publications required a long lead time for composition it was most likely composed by April 18th, 1906. The films were shot on or around April 12th and shipped to New York on April 17th, the eve of the quake.
That would appear to confirm the date for the film but Kiehn dug deeper by dating the early license plates on cars in the film. The DMV told him that the records no longer existed but he found them in the California State Archives in Sacramento. He eventually found one of the plate numbers from the film, 4867, and traced it to a Jay Anway who registered his car in early 1906 which further verified his research.
There are many other twists and turns along the way to confirming the film’s date. Kiehn has written up the entire tale in the most recent issue of the Argonaut.
History caught on camera: This footage is extraordinary, very bleak and miserable... and the quality of the footage looks so genuine. Somehow I don't think newer filming technology has the same breathtaking effect of old films like this. From Prelinger Archives