I'm reading two new books : "Worlds In Collision" by Immanuel Velikovsky and "They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers" by Gray Barker. Don't you just love that title? It makes you wonder what happened to Them for Knowing Too Much. Did they meet with a bad end, like The Man Who Knew Too Much? You've gotta walk a fine line when Knowing About Certain Things, I suppose. Barker's book deals with his own investigations into the UFO mystery, and how it led him to the doorstep of Albert K. Bender, whose own "Flying Saucers and The Three Men" we recently finished reading. Barker doesn't specify if he and Bender are the They in the title, but it's worth noting that Bender was silenced by The Three Men of his book, who told him to keep his mouth shut about his flying saucer discoveries, so it stands to reason that he and Barker are indeed the guys referenced. It's a minor classic in UFO lore, first published in 1956.
Velikovsky's book is not only a classic but was also a best seller upon it's release in 1950. It proposes an alternative but highly plausible theory of human and geological history, now called "catastrophism", based on ancient folkloric and religious accounts from many early cultures, that all describe the same natural disasters. His main thesis is that a comet passed by Earth around the time of the Exodus, in 2400 BC. The Earth was enveloped in the gasses and debris of the comet's tail, which rained down a hailstorm of meteorites and a black, sticky substance that darkened the sky and caused massive fires on the surface of our planet. The sticky stuff was oil, which Velikovsky points out is made of carbon and hydrogen, the same components of the gaseous comet tail. Over centuries the oil sank into the ground. You'll have to read the book for details, but it's mind boggling stuff, to try and comprehend what it must have been like to witness a planetary body collide with the Earth, and to knock it off it's axis, which is why we rotate at a tilt. Try to imagine the waters of the oceans being thrown up into the air, in a wall 3 miles high. That is the tidal wave that swept the planet when the collision took place. It was the Deluge of the Bible and of many other cultural/historical accounts. This is one of those books I dare you to read, because I think Velikovsky is closer to being on target than the science community who disparages him. It's not like he hasn't done his research, or that he's a crank. This is a very, very famous book, and it so upset the scientific orthodoxy that they've been trying to blacken Velikovsky's name ever since. Read it for yourself and see. There's a reason the Marianas Trench is so deep, and a reason we have enormous gouges on Earth in the first place, in which the oceans sit, just as there's a reason that former ocean floor rocks like the sandstone formations of Santa Susana now stand more than 2000 feet above sea level.
We got hit by something in the not too ancient past, and it reformed the Earth as we know it.
The real question, though, is this : does the ancient calamity reside in the modern subconscious as what is called a "race memory", meaning something the entire human race has embedded inside? I say it does. What say you?
It's still hard to process the news from yesterday. It doesn't seem real, y'know? It's so hard to lose the people we love, even those we don't personally know, like our heroes.
I did watch a couple movies over the past two nights. One was "5th Avenue Girl"(1939), starring Ginger Rogers. I was planning to review it when the news broke about Neil Peart. In short, it's a romantic comedy about a wealthy manufacturer (Walter Connolly) who feels unloved by his society wife and selfish children, so he hires an unemployed girl (Ginger) whom he meets in Central Park, to act as his mistress. He brings her home to his mansion and sets her up with her own room, all to the chagrin of his wife, who has no shortage of boyfriends herself. Our cowboy pal Tim Holt plays his uptight son. Here, Holt is in his "A" acting mode. We love him in the quickie Westerns, but he had the talent to kick things up a notch in higher grade films, such as "The Magnificent Ambersons", in which he had the central role. In "5th Avenue Girl", he plays a similar punk to his character in "Ambersons", a spoiled brat who has to get his way. You know that Ginger will fix his wagon, though. She does so for everyone in the household. We've seen Ginger Rogers in a non-Astaire film before, in "Bachelor Mother", and we loved her in it. She's got a great persona even without dancing, a kind of nonchalant dry wit, and we'll be on the lookout for more of her "solo" work for sure.
The other movie I watched was "Lawless Valley" (1938), starring George O'Brien, who played the male lead in Murnau's "Sunrise", the legendary Silent film that I thought was the best movie we saw in 2019. I needed a new Western Collection for the start of the year, so I checked Amazon and thought I'd give O'Brien a try. After one film, I'd say he's very good as The Hero of this particular series. He's a big man, built like a football player, so when he gets into punchouts it's no contest. He doesn't have the boyish charm of Tim Holt or the quick draw of Charles Starrett aka "The Durango Kid", but he's handsome and relentless in his pursuit of justice, which is what you want in your Western Good Guys. All nine films in the collection run 59 minutes, which we love, cause you can get in and get out without dawdling. "Lawless Valley" was shot entirely at Corriganville,which is always fun to see in these old Westerns. George played a man who was newly paroled from prison, where he'd done time after being framed, along with his father, for a train robbery they didn't commit. He returns to his hometown, where the guy who framed him is The Big Cheese. This guy controls the Sheriff, who tries to run George out of town. While George was in prison, Big Cheese killed his Dad and made it look like suicide. George is gonna prove this and end Big Cheese's reign of terror once and for all. I love my Hour Long Westerns. They're good anytime, but are especially nice on a day when you just want some easygoing entertainment.
The news about Neil was like a gut punch, and my job has been pretty rough going recently as well. Dementia is the devil's disease.
Well anyhow, onward and upward. We had good singin' in church this morn and it's a beautiful day. I'm gonna head out for a short walk and then back to Pearl's. See you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment