Along with many other anniversaries of great pith and circumstance, this day also shares its anniversary—according to our faithful chronicler, with the 1985 general release in US cinemas of Return to Oz, starring Fairuza Balk as Dorothy Gale on her continuing adventures over the rainbow, a loose amalgam of L. Frank Baum’s other books and not intended to be a sequel to the 1939 production. Committed as delusion by Aunt Em for her talk of Oz and confined in an institution about to undergo shock treatment, a mysterious inmate helps Dorothy escape by jumping from an embankment to a rushing, flooded river, washed away towards the Deadly Desert with her now talking chicken Bilina. Finding the Yellow Brick Road and Emerald City in ruins and all its people petrified (turned to stone), Dorothy is menaced by marauding packs of creatures with wheels for hands and feet. Cornered, escapes again and winds-up a mechanical sentry called Tik-Tok who relates to her how the kingdom has been overrun by the minions of the Nome King and Mombi, the Wicked Witch of the North. Though initially panned by American critics for its dark nature and twisted portrayals, it was quite popular outside of domestic markets and has since gained cult status.
Monday 21 June 2021
Sunday 18 April 2021
guilty feet have got no rhythm
Just ahead of the duo’s ground-breaking pair of concerts in China, the first Western pop band to play to this venue, Wham! released its album Make It Big in Chinese markets—with the hit singles “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” “Freedom” and “Careless Whisper”—on this day in 1985. Having taken a break from the studio George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley embarked on an extensive world tour that included coveted stops (see previously) in Beijing and Guangzhou. Knowing what a publicity coup the concerts meant, the negotiations with authorities were not entirely above-board, as one of Wham!’s managers later owned up to, admitting that he presented his group as pleasant, clean-cut and conservative whereas with the competition, Queen, he emphasised the flamboyance of Freddie Mercury, also securing approval over the Rolling Stones.
Friday 1 January 2021
video hits one
Among many events of pith and moment, as our faithful chronicler informs, this day also shares the 1985 launch of the MTV sister channel aimed at adult contemporary listeners of popular music VH1 in order to fill market niche left by the discontinuation of the short-lived rival network, the Cable Music Channel from the Turner Broadcasting System.
Staple artists from the first years included Billy Joel, Sting, Kenny G, Rod Stewart, Michael Bolton and Tina Turner with programming blocks dedicated to vintage variety show footage, clip specials and Motown, R&B, Sophisti-Pop, smooth jazz and New Age. The eighth video aired was Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” In that first hour of broadcasting, songs played were “Nobody Told Me [There’d be Days Like These]” by John Lennon, Diana Ross’ “Missing You,” “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling”—the Hall & Oates version, “I’m Alright” from Kenny Loggings and “Joanna” by Kool & The Gang.Thursday 8 October 2020
les mis
Wednesday 5 September 2018
that's why they call me mister fahrenheit
To celebrate what would have been the artist’s seventy-second birthday, we look through Dangerous Minds’ archives and find footage from Freddie Mercury’s legendary bash held at Old Missus Henderson’s club (closed in August 2008) in Mรผnchen in 1985. Invited guests were instructed to dress for the drag ball in black and white and parts of the party’s proceedings were incorporated into the music video for Mercury’s Living on My Own. At the time, Mercury lived on the nearby Hans-Sachs-Straรe in the borough of Ludwigsvorstadt where Oktoberfest is held.
Sunday 20 November 2016
ios
On this day back in 1985, the Microsoft corporation introduced the graphical interface, DOS-overlay known as Windows 1.0 in order to complete with the popular Macintosh released a year prior—think of that seminal Big Brother, Nineteen Eighty-Four advertisement whose revolt promised to free us from the tyranny of the PC.
I wonder when cultural the geneology of version n-point-o of something became idiomatic. Back then the battle for dominance between Microsoft and Apple struck me as something not very much different than the Cola Wars—one has to wonder if innovation comes because or despite the branding, and it doesn’t strike me as very much different nowadays, excepting who’s Tab and who’s Royal Crown may have flipped.