The Fugitive Kind

In the fall of 1963 I was in the middle of a teenage existential angst. Fresh out of high school, facing the uncertainties of college and on the verge of a world gone mad (Vietnam, Civil Rights fights, the continuing threat of nuclear war), not sure of who I was or where my future lay, […]

Sputnik at 50

History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world’s first artificial satellite was about the size of a basketball, weighed only 183 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While […]

More Notes From the Apocalypse

According to two stories in the Los Angeles Times, the end of culture as we know it is surely accelerating — due to the pervasive influence of television and advertising. In a study conducted by Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington in Seattle, for every hour that babies between […]

Bandstand at 50

American Bandstand On August 5, 1957, at 3 p.m, “American Bandstand” made its debut on national television. Not as shocking as the fins on Cadillacs or the launch of Sputnik, the event nevertheless was seismic in its long-lasting effects – it helped to usher in a new national cultural phenomena: “… young viewers were suddenly […]

Pink Floyd: Interstellar Music

To your list of musical anniversaries this year — that include the original release of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and the Monterrey Pop Festival — add the 40th anniversary of the release of Pink Floyd’s first album, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.” Pink Floyd burst on the scene in the late […]