American Rhetoric: The Power of Oratory in the United States

For any history buffs out there who want to read or hear speeches made by notable personalities from the past up to the present, this is a place to start. You'll find Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Huey Long, Dwight Eisenhower, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, JFK, Richard Nixon, and many many others.

Mad Magazine Collector Resource Center

Any MAD aficionados out there? Here's a place to look around. There's a ton of stuff plus links to other MAD sites.

You couldn't tear me away from it when I was a kid. I even made a little comic scrapbook inspired by MAD. I couldn't tell you what ever happened to it, but I once made an album of photos clipped from newspapers and magazines and put my own funny captions on them, and sometimes gave them speech bubbles. Everyone I showed it to would laugh and tell me how good I was at it. I didn't take it serious enough to pursue for very long though, you know how kids are; short attention spans.

Jack Anderson Remembered

"Jack Anderson was born in Long Beach, California, on 19th October, 1922. Two years later his family moved to Utah, the stronghold of the Mormon Church. Anderson was brought up in Salt Lake City and his journalistic career started at school when he began writing for his local newspaper, The Murray Eagle. At eighteen he joined the Salt Lake Tribune but left the job to become a Mormon missionary in the Deep South."

"Jack Anderson retired from journalism in July, 2004. He died at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, of complications from Parkinson's disease, on 17th December, 2005."

This was one of my favorite journalists in days gone by. Though he only retired in '04, I'd heard nothing from or about him for several years. This site gives an overview of his life.

Back in the '60s and '70s when I was growing up, he help form my thirst for what was really going on behind the scenes in politics. Simply growing up during that period, it was hard not to be interested anyway. I miss his style, especially these days when we need more poeple like him.

Uh oh, I'd better stop here, as I feel a rant coming on, and I don't want to do that on this blog, [Warning; shameless self-promotion approaching] preferring to save my tirades for my other blog:
Another Brick In The Wall

The Internet Museum of Flexi / Cardboard / Oddity Records

"Once bound by cereal boxes, held in the pages of a magazine, wrapped up in envelopes sent through our postal system or given away casually with some product, these bits of paper and plastic yearned to be set free to fulfill their destiny as...

PLAYABLE RECORDS
"Come and take an aural and visual journey through a partial history of these strange but true recorded anomolies."

Remember those? You'd have to be at least as old as I am, to have actually gotten them originally. I had a bunch, mostly from cereal boxes, and Mad Magazines. Until I found this site, I'd totally forgotten them. Of course, I don't have them anymore, they weren't exactly made to last.

There certainly are some odd ones here. They've got a clip from Nixons' party nomination speech from '68. I kid you not. They have Real Audio clips you can play, though they only last about half a minute, but they did bring back memories. I wish they played at least three or four minutes each (sigh).

Check them out. They're short, but sweet!

Frankensteins' Anniversary

Actually, the anniversary was yesterday on January 1, but since I'll bet you forgot too, it doesn't really matter.

Jan. 1, 1818 was the day the novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley entitled Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus was first published in London.

My first introduction was to the 1931 movie version starring Boris Karloff on late-night TV back in the 60s, and maybe it spoiled me, but I've never met a subsequent version I've liked. I've since read the original novel and, and at the time, was surprised at the difference. I was young then and didn't know it was common practice to take "artistic liberty" when making movies from novels. Even so, the '31 version remains my Favorite. I've watched it everytime it's come on TV, and have it stored in a now aging video tape collection. I also have audio versions I've found on the internet that I listen to every once in a while.

Here are a few links you might like:

The Origin of a Myth: Mary Shelley's Novel Frankenstein

Project Gutenbergs' Frankenstein e-text

The LibriVox contemporary Mp3 version in 22 parts.

Old Time Radio MP3 version in 13 episodes.

Various movie versions from Amazon.com