For August 2017 I am going on a 1949 media diet: outside of this blog and work, all content I consume must be from 1949 or before – music, film, radio, television, books, magazines and news.
Pencilled in (those with links are free online):
- weekday mornings:
- newspaper:
- read the Li’l Abner comic strip for the given date.
- read Eleanor Roosevelt’s “My Day” column.
- look at the Chicago Tribune.
- newspaper:
- weekday evenings:
- radio and television: whatever comes up for the given date on YouTube.
- books: Read as much of the following books as possible. The first three were read by Malcolm X in prison between 1948 and 1952:
- H.G. Wells: Outline of History (1920) – already reading, but unlikely to finish in August.
- W.E.B. Du Bois: The Souls of Black Folk (1903) – already reading.
- Frances Anne Kemble: Journal of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation in 1838-1839 (1863)
- Tolstoy: War and Peace (1868) – already reading, but unlikely to finish in August.
- H.G. Wells: Time Machine (1895)
- Jean Toomer: Cane (1923) – already reading.
- Hergé: Tintin in the Congo (1931)
- Carter G. Woodson: The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933)
- Graham Greene: The Third Man (1949)
- listening to music:
- ’40s Oldies on AOL Radio.
- whatever period music I can find on YouTube.
- Saturdays:
- film: Watch a film from 1949 and do a post on it. I am thinking of:
- “Lost Boundaries” (about passing for White. Mel Ferrer’s first flim)
- “Souls of Sin” (a Black film)
- “Impact” (film noir, has Anna May Wong)
- “Blondie Hits the Jackpot” (a popular series)
- magazines: Look at:
- National Geographic, August 1949.
- The New Yorker magazine for the corresponding week in 1949.
- Life magazine for August 8th and 22nd 1949.
- film: Watch a film from 1949 and do a post on it. I am thinking of:
- Sundays:
- music: Post the top R&B song for the given date. If it is the same as last week, post another song from 1949.
- radio: Listen to an episode of “Amos & Andy” from earlier in the year.
“The given date” means 68 years ago plus one day. So on Sunday August 13th 2017, for example, I will act as if it is Sunday August 14th 1949. That way I read Sunday comics on Sunday, and so on.
Tumblr: only to look at or post content from 1949.
This blog:
- research: I am going to try to do this with only material from 1949 or before. I am not sure how that will work out!
- writing: If I use any word not found in H.G. Wells, I will have to make clear its meaning, either inline or in a separate post. I will follow my H.G. Wells style guide.
Second-hand smoke: Since I run a blog in 2017 and do not live in the woods like Thoreau, some 2017 media content is bound to reach me second-hand, especially news. To limit that as much as possible I picked August, when television is in reruns and Congress is in recess.
After the month is over I will do a review.
Suggestions: If you want to suggest content or a post topic, please leave a comment below. If necessary, I will temporarily break my diet to do a post on a topic requested or liked by two or more commenters.
– Abagond, 2017.
Update (August 4th): I added a tab to live blog 1949.
See also:
534
How about a post on the “Free, white, and 21” catchphrase that was so popular during that era?
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Personally im a little disappointed because tintin{+} was the first MUD client i compiled in unix to play adventure games online back in the day.
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Well most of the publications (books) you mentioned need to be studied not just read.
The period 1865 – 1954 is the Jim Crow era and all writing has to be taken as being impacted by those thinkers of that day.
By the way, Malcolm was not a proven thinker. He just expressed his views and his meager experience. His famous expression about the two (n’s) is completely wrong. There was very little contact between the two and most of the tattling was among the field n’s. We love Malcolm because he spoke out, not because he had any real knowledge.
My experience was with 365 all black men and how they were controlled by black non commissioned officers and two or three white officers.
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gro jo During that day, that was the authority to speak out. You cannot go back and change the past. Also, not many white females had a voice then. The expression should have been “free white male and 21”.
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That phrase was mostly associated with white women. Men had no need to say such things.
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v8driver, why do you speak in such vague terms???
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Allen Shaw, what do you mean, Malcolm was “not a proven thinker”, please clarify.
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@Cherry Boy Please read his story.
We all loved Malcolm that is why he was killed.
He read a few books in jail and can you show any other record of his academic achievements.
He thought he had the answers to the black problems.
@gro jo Yes you are correct, I was just speaking about the reality. White women were not actually “free” as you think of free.
I accept your correction. You de one!
Most women were “bare footed and pregnant’.
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I suggest that you use a 1940s Encyclopedia (and dictionary) for reference, in case you need to look something up.
I remember my grandparents had a 1951 World book on their reference shelf when I was a kid, a set they got for my mother and her brother when they were in school.
And I remember the way they used to put things, esp. about Negroes and American Indians and their frequent use of the term “white man” as the normalized or default term for “American” people. By the early 60s, this term was disappearing and a term in standard reference material.
So, when you look up something that you read in the other books, you need to use the relevant 1940s reference books.
Also suggest that you include in your reading material some textbooks that were widely used in the 1940s (even though I do think that some of the books you listed were on reading lists in high schools or universities), so that you know what students were learning. I have a children’s storybook from my Aunt that she used in elementary school in the 1940s.
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http://web.mit.edu/games/doc/tintin++/tintin15.txt
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@ jefe
I agree! All I have is the Concise Oxford DIctionary of 1911:
https://archive.org/details/conciseoxforddic00fowlrich
and the online 1911 Encyclopaedia Briitannica:
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/
Public domain only goes up to 1923. My grandparents had hardly any books. My grandmother on my father’s side was a big reader, but she got all her books from the library. My father had tons of books, and I have a few of them, but they only go back to 1950. So 1949 is in a blind spot for me (1924-49).
Aware of all that, I am reading the “Outline of History” to fill in some of the gaps (in general knowledge and use of English).
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@ Allen Shaw
Malcolm X did not even have a high school degree, but by the time he got out of prison he probably knew more about Black history than anyone in the country apart from a few professors – in part because Black history was little known or studied in the US back then.
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It’s Howdy Doody Time: the episode from August 3rd, 1949:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neZ1xI9Zdbc)
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@abagond of course, if you say so it must be true.
A person who reads propaganda does not know. A person who reads books written by Ice Berg Slim are not being educated. They are being brain washed.
At that time in history many stories written were not verifiable.
So I will not question your wisdom, because you could get inside of the head of a prejudiced individual, while I am not capable of getting into the mind of anyone.
To me Malcolm was a person who was unhappy with his treatment and had the verbal skills to blow people away. You cannot truly compare him with the black educators and leaders of that day without having a hero complex.
I can only recall the many failed conversation I had with my son about Ice Berg Slim and his crap. I just could not overcome the rhetoric of that day.
For anyone to believe that revolution against the cruelest people on earth is preferable to Martin L King’s wisdom is beyond me. Showing picture of people being beat to people who go out and kill people for a living and actually enjoy it is ludicrous.
Please restudy the history of Europe and China where millions of people have been slaughtered, starved and maimed.
Two of my male children were misdirected by that group. Both had failed lives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_X#Early_ministry
“Besides his skill as a speaker, Malcolm X had an impressive physical presence. He stood 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighed about 180 pounds (82 kg).[58] One writer described him as “powerfully built”,[59] and another as “mesmerizingly handsome … and always spotlessly well-groomed”.[”
“He proposed that African Americans should return to Africa and that, in the interim, a separate country for black people in America should be created.”
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@v8driver
Now that – is old-school!! You’re a real greybeard, v8!
@AllenShaw
What Malcolm was good at was making deep statements about America in pithy terms. He would have had been perfect for Twitter. The House/Field analogy was less important for its historical accuracy than for what it said about rich black people who were being used by the power structure against other blacks.
@Gro Jo
You can always e-mail Abagond a post…….
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@Satanforce
Unfortunately I have seen his unwise statement repeated on the conservative publications as they try to point out the blacks weaknesses.
Regardless of how he intended it to be used in the future it is now being used as a weapon against the blacks.
One has to be careful about making public statements they can be misused.
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@ Allen Shaw
Huh? Who said anything about Ice Berg Slim?
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A book read by your hero!
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Yes satanforce i must meet you some day just to say hello.
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Not even tintin++ or 3 lol zmud was the best
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The books in the house thong i been said it before i been in over 2000 american homes (cable tv tech) like over 70% have no books in plain sight mebbe 10% just a bible.
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“I can only recall the many failed conversation I had with my son about Ice Berg Slim and his crap. I just could not overcome the rhetoric of that day.”
“@ Allen Shaw
Huh? Who said anything about Ice Berg Slim?”
“A book read by your hero!”
Allen Shaw
How did Malcolm manage to “read” IceBerg Slim when he was, two years, dead when the first Iceberg Slim book, Pimp, was published in 1967?
“For anyone to believe that revolution against the cruelest people on earth is preferable to Martin L King’s wisdom is beyond me. Showing picture of people being beat to people who go out and kill people for a living and actually enjoy it is ludicrous.”
Didn’t you spend your adulthood in the US military?
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@gro jo Forgive me for being so “DD”. Of course the two could never meet since both were in the Chicago area.
You are correct nothing in the one persons life could have impacted each other.
I do not understand your point about “Didn’t you spend your adulthood in the US military?” Yes I did spend 20 years in the military; however, I have never been near any combat troops. I do not have that honor!
There have been millions of people who have served; but very few are selected to accomplish the task of murdering people. But rest assured they are there trained and ready to go. Not all of them are in uniforms. Gov Wallace woke up one fine morning and found his city full of federal troops and his own state national guard federalized. (I was in Montgomery, Alabama that day)
Remember Kent, Ohio!
A reminder: The Chinese, Germans and the Soviet Union have conducted mass killing of individuals in the millions to accomplish their goals. Malcolm X or any other individual who encourages a group of people to rise up against a superior force are foolish thinkers.
Dr. King had the correct message and Malcolm was a misled individual who would, with his wonderful gifted voice, led millions of blacks to their deaths.
Think of the consequences before you speak.
DD = D–n D–b!
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There is a new show on NBC radio: Dragnet:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=271BkvKdYJU)
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@ Allen Shaw
I did a post on some of what Malcolm X read in prison:
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@ Allen Shaw
“Malcolm X or any other individual who encourages a group of people to rise up against a superior force are foolish thinkers.”
Every Black person that comments on this blog is aware of genocides in other countries. Not to mention the current brutal regime of police and vigilante violence against Black people in this country. That violence could easily ramp up to full on genocide.
Yet, even a “superior force” has weaknesses and can be beaten. The Koreans fought a multi-national force to a standstill. The Vietnamese kicked the French and the Americans out of their country. The Iraqi’s drove a “superior force” out of their country with improvised weaponry.
Those people faced staggering odds and paid an enormous price, but were still able to defend themselves against a “superior force”.
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@abagond There is no way that I am going to pursue this. You have a hero warship for Malcolm X. I believe he was a person that was misdirecting the blacks.
Nothing is going to resolve the differences. When I was young I would sign out four or five books from the library. When the time to return them came, sometimes I had not read them and would return them unread. others I skimmed because they did not hold my interest.
If you were in the cell with him you would not know what he read or what he got out of what he read. What you know is what he presented to the public. Many bull sh—-s could blow people’s minds; however, they had very minimal thoughts about consequences.
He failed to realize the position he was in with the Nation of Islam. That is why he was killed. That meant he was short sighted not wise. Farrakhan who was born Louis Eugene Wolcott is still leader. That is a person of wisdom.
In the final analysis only those who win count.
One must be careful of how they encourage others to act, the others have to pay the price.
I remind people all of the time, it does not make any difference what you intended to say, it is what people believe you said.
Your article are the greatest and encourage positive and complete conversation.
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@Afrofem how so heroic! How so great. Ask those US Servicemen who were at Chosen when the Chinese came across the border who they were facing. I assure you it was not the North Koreans.
“The Vietnamese kicked the French and the Americans” History the French had a small foreign legion in Vietnam, left over from the days of colonization and they got kicked out. The US went in to fight for the French which was the wrong side of the war and gave up because of public outcry, (we did not have a dog in that fight.) We should have been supporting the North Vietnamese. Study the meeting being held in Geneva for the problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_United_States_involvement_in_the_Vietnam_War#Polarization
https://www.britannica.com/event/Geneva-Accords
“The Iraqi’s drove a “superior force” out of their country with improvised weaponry.” Please explain when and what are you speaking about. Was it Iran or just who did Iraq drive out?
Please provide me with a true history of small insignificant force winning over a massive force.
“Every Black person that comments on this blog is aware of genocides in other countries”. I am unaware of all black people knowing any one thing; however if you say so it must be true. While most people today have read about atrocities they have not experienced them in any degree because none have occurred in most of the contributors lifetime.
These matters are not actually black or white, they have to do with who is going to control. Study the former Soviet Union or the German expansion prior to World War II or even the Yugoslavia separation for experience and do not forget the Hutu’s and Tutsi’s.
http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm
http://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/se/5906/590606.html
“Fifty years after the end of World War II, few people are aware that Jews were not the only victims of the Nazis. In addition to six million Jews, more than five million non-Jews were murdered under the Nazi regime. Among them were Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, blacks, the physically and mentally disabled, political opponents of the Nazis, including Communists and Social Democrats, dissenting clergy, resistance fighters, prisoners of war, Slavic peoples, and many individuals from the artistic communities whose opinions and works Hitler condemned.1
The Nazis’ justification for genocide was the ancient claim, passed down through Nordic legends, that Germans were superior to all other groups and constituted a “master race.””
“The Nazis also had a significant impact on the lives of black children, who were the offspring of German women and African soldiers stationed in the Rhineland after World War I. Many of these so-called “Rhineland Bastards” were picked up from the streets or from classrooms and sterilized, often without anesthesia. Due to the application of the “Law for the Prevention of Off-spring with Hereditary Defects,” which was passed in 1933, approximately 400 of these children were deprived of their right to reproduce.”
It is bad advice to suggest that blacks can take up arms against the power structure! There is no way possible for the people of this nation to give the blacks a separate part of this nation for their use and there is no where in Africa that will accept the US blacks. There is no place on the face of this earth, today for the black to go. They must remain and participate in the main society.
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@ Abagond
What happened to Live Blogging 1949?
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@ Solitaire
I pulled it because I am having trouble getting commenting turned on.
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@ Allen Shaw
“…there is no where in Africa that will accept the US blacks. There is no place on the face of this earth, today for the black to go.”
Based on what? Your opinion alone?
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@Afrofem Perhaps I should have said 35 million US blacks. You seem to look for the chicken sh– small details.
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@abagond I will get back to you. Your request requires some thought and I do not have some computer to spit this stuff out.
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[…] been edited to make it fit an F-pattern in an H.G. Wells style. I added a message from Superman in 1949 at the […]
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1949 endearing, yes.
It went from the campfire to the fireplace then the wireless, eventually the flat screen and the android took forever i had the idea of a pda with way before wwan sims etc. Back at the ranch, a little elevated tension, of course i live where i do. No protests in philly. Coverage of boston the globe is a beggin azz opperation. Anyway. Back to hg wells!
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Tonight back in 1949, NBC had a one-hour radio play version of Orwell’s “1984”:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHLN_V1CcM8)
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