Eve of the War

A little revelation for me today. I finally found a song that I was whispering from time to time, without knowing the title or who the artist is. And yes, it has dawned on me, thanks to my friend Rade who is a meticulous seeker of pop culture stuff on the Internet. It is Jeff Wayne’s “Eve of the War”! Big thanks. You know, this is really a situation where search engines don’t help. How are you supposed to enter a keyword for something that you can only reproduce as music. Is this a good idea for an innovative search engine? Probably not.

There’s one thing that connects me strongly to this song. It was used as intro to a 1980’s Yugoslav sci-fi review show “Zvezdani ekran” (“Starry Screen”) hosted by Zoran Živković, the leading authority on science fiction in former Yugoslavia, later a big friend of Michael Moorcock and the most translated Serbian writer.

I watched the show in 1985 and 1986 usually some time at noon, before the school. I am sorry that the recorded shows are nowhere to be found, otherwise I would put the whole intro here, not just the music. The one below is from an animated series.

Yes, mid-eighties Graf! That was the time of those BBC documentaries, ones from Thames production. Wildlife shows like “Survival”. David Bellamy and wanders of nature somewhere around 10AM and then Zvezdani ekran. It was in that show that I saw a short sci-fi film "Quest" by Saul Bass based on a story by Ray Bradbury of the world where people live for only eight days and try to get out of that world for generations. One of my great impressions which is now decades old. It is another artefact of my TV life that I am lookin for...

Here's the video with Jeff Wayne's "Eve of the War" as a theme:

Sinister

Graf Oderland, thanks for the picture. However, it reminds of something that I thought about long ago, and that is how the cracks on the film really added some sinister look to the event. There is a lot of noise on the picture you placed as the header, and there is a strange feel I get from it. It is like in those dreams where you speak and the words come out distorted or with delay, or when you try to look at something, but the light is somehow too bright.

I found a video showing a footage of outer space taken from V-2 rocket in 1946. Our planet, that we are used to seeing as a pearl white ball with emerging blue and green, looks very sinister due to footage noise. What else to expect from a V-2?

Fiddling with design

As you can see Zoran, I've started playing around a little bit with the look of the site, mostly to make it a little more interesting and easy on the eye. I've actually been meaning to do so for a while - had the image all chopped up and set to go. Finally got around to it on this chilly autumn Saturday morning.

Given our theme, and the fact that both your Pynchon and my Burke links touched on the V2, I thought it was apropos. And I liked the picture. Tell me what you think. And by all means, go in and fiddle with the settings/features yourself.

I'll continue my thought from a couple weeks ago presently.