Marianne Spellman's Open Salon Blog

WANNA FEEL SICK? WATCH THIS CLIP FROM A FILM ABOUT WEATHER, CLIMATE, & GLOBAL WARMING...FROM THE 1950s

Wed, 22 May 2013 02:05:00 -0400

The best and brightest scientific minds have long been in agreement that global warming is the single greatest threat to the continuation of life on Earth. But just how long we have known that our unchecked atmosphere-destroying waste was an unfolding tragedy was unknown to me until I saw this today. Made by legendary director Frank Capra for Bell Labs in 1958, "The Unchained Goddess," in this just-over-a-minute-long film clip, is nauseatingly prophetic.

Imagine if we had listened, and imagine if we had taken it all seriously and done something about it back then, wrestling the beast who will kill us to the ground.

Imagine.

"The Unchained Goddess" clip, 1958

I MADE YOU SOME GRADUATION CARDS

Tue, 21 May 2013 02:05:00 -0400

PHOTOS: MAN...OR ASTRO-MAN?, AUDACITY, ATOMIC BRIDE @ NEUMOS; THE BEETS & CMRTYZ @ BARBOZA, SEATTLE, WA. 5/18/13

Mon, 20 May 2013 02:05:00 -0400

Five bands, two clubs, one night = FUN CITY! Your leetle foto fren, ME, stepped out on the town last night to see and hear a diverse buncha bands, hailing from Alabama and California and New York and good 'ol Seattle, and playing anything from space-surf instrumentals to minimalist garage rock. It was a good challenge to run up and down the stairs between the two clubs (Barboza is located in the basement of Neumos) and I did at least get to see something of all of them! Please to enjoy the photos, click to enlarge and go to Flickr for more! Do check these bands out, won't you?

CMRTYZ (CMRTYZ Flickr set)

Atomic Bride (Atomic Bride Flickr set)

The Beets (The Beets Flickr set)

Audacity

OK, here's where I failed. I really like this band from Fullerton, CA. and had seen them open for Ty Segall a couple years ago at the Crocodile here in Seattle, and was looking forward to seeing them again. But when I got to the stage at Neumos after the end of The Beets' show at Barboza, this is what I saw and all I got:

Yes, the wave goodbye. Sorry, everyone! Enjoy the gif, anyway!

Man...or Astro-Man? (Man...or Astro-Man Flickr set)

Thank you Neumos and Barboza, Daniel Gill at ForceField PR, Kitty Page Amsbry, and of course all the bands!

WEIRD GOVERNMENT FILM OF THE DAY: "JACKSON JUNIOR HIGH ALCOHOL EDUCATION" (1976)

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:05:00 -0400

You thought I found a weird PSA film yesterday? THIS ONE TOPS IT! In 1976, I, too, was a junior high school student, but we never had an alcohol use education film like this one, featuring Patches, a drunken St. Bernard dog. Yes, A HUGE DRUNK DROOLING DOG! This little movie is made extra-mega-awesome by intensely-'70s clothes, hair, and glasses, a 14-year-old girl sitting at a bar quizzing a bartender about alcohol contents, junior high kids drinking champagne at an African-American wedding, an animated sequence with "alcohol" vrooming through the body on a personal hovercraft wearing a German war helmet, tender folk songs about alcohol usage, and the science teacher bringing in a variety of booze into the classroom and announcing that if you drink rubbing alcohol. "you can destroy all the nerve cells in your body and maybe even go blind." PERFECT -- thank you, United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare!! Please to enjoy!!

Jackson Junior High Alcohol Education (1976)

WEIRD GOVERNMENT FILM OF THE DAY: "YOU IN PUBLIC SERVICE (INTRODUCTION)" (1977)

Sat, 18 May 2013 01:05:00 -0400

AAAHAHAHA! Aw, MAN. I tell you, sometimes you just come across something that makes you wonder, "WHAT were they thinking?" I've been doing a lot of old film footage digging for a project lately, and today I uncovered this gem, made by your pals at the United States Department of Health in 1977: "You In Public Service." This series was designed to entice people into working for Uncle Sam by explaining in a hyper-friendly yet slow-witted way how to function in the most basic ways in order to be a good American service lackey.

To make it all even more surreal, the actors (who seem to be rather inexperienced) break into song every couple of minutes, with exciting tunes and dance routines about communication skills and what to do with the endless piles of useless paper your government job will process. At the end, one of the actors pretends that she took her Civil Service Exam and passed, and she's so stoked about it that you'd think she'd won the lottery and is off to sip champagne on Fantasy Island rather than facing filing case numbers for 30 years in windowless, cubicle-choked government building.

Oh, Government. You big sillies. Please to enjoy!

"You In Public Service (Introduction)" (1977)