Saturday 5 February 2022

golden nose slim (knows where you’ve been)

On this day in 1972, T·Rex again topped UK charts—the third out of four do reach these heights in a run comparable to Beatlemania and first-wave British Invasion—with their single “Telegram Sam,” with a similar beat and instrumentation as their previous hit “Bang a Gong [Get It On],” for a run of two weeks. The glam rock group headed by Marc Bolan (off their seventh album, The Slider, since they first got together as Tyrannosaurus Rex in 1967) popularised the term “main man” and was ostensibly about being loyal to one’s dealer.

Tuesday 1 February 2022

live alone in a pardise that makes me think of two

As our faithful chronicler informs, musician Neil Young (previously) released his fourth studio album on this day in 1972. With tracks backed by the London Symphony Orchestra and guests Linda Ronstadt, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and James Taylor and the singles “Heart of Gold,” “Old Man” and “The Needle and the Damage Done,” Harvest topped record charts around the world and was the most popular and commercially successful album of the year in the US and Canada. Young’s nineteenth recording from 1992, Harvest Moon, features many of the same musicians from the earlier album.

Sunday 30 January 2022

the troubles

On this day in 1972 in the Bogside neighbourhood of Londonderry, British paratroopers massacred a

group of unarmed civilians staging a protest march, rallying against internment without trial—codenamed Operation Demetrius, mass arrest and detention of those suspected to be members or supporters of the Irish Republican Army, torturing some of the internees. Fourteen of the twenty-six marchers were killed on what’s been called Bloody Sunday—the military’s action ultimately ruled after multiply investigations and re-litigation in 2010 as “unjustified” and “unjustifiable” though no prosecutions proceedings have been yet successfully launched.

Monday 24 January 2022

zanryลซ nipponhei

Incredibly SGT Shลichi Yokoi (ๆจชไบ• ๅบ„ไธ€, 1915-1997), among the last holdout soldiers found decades after the end of hostilities in the Second World War, was discovered by two individuals checking shrimp traps at the edge of a small river leading into the jungles of Guam on this day in 1972. When American forces took the island in 1944, Yokoi and others went into hiding, taking up isolated outposts in the wilderness. Though later admitting that he knew of the outcome of the war since 1952, he considered it a grave disgrace to surrender or be captured alive, Yokoi remained in hiding for twenty-eight years, making clothes out of plants and surviving off a diet of mango, papaya, snails and frogs. After his repatriation to Japan, Yokoi became a media sensation and advocate for simple living. Passing away, aged 82, Yokoi was interred at a cemetery in Nagoya in a plot with a headstone originally installed by his family in 1955 when the missing soldier was officially declared dead.

Saturday 22 January 2022

i had to phone someone so i picked on you

Announcing his sexuality in an interview with Melody Maker magazine reported Michael Watts, published on this day in 1972, David Bowie’s statement, “I’m gay and always have been,” was not unnoticed but failed to register with more mainstream audiences until his performance of Starman with Mick Ronson on Top of the Pops in July of the same year. The article continues: “He despises all these tribal qualifications. Flower Power he enjoyed, but it’s individuality that he’s really trying to preserve. The paradox is that he still has what he describes as ‘a good relationship’ with his wife. And his baby son, Zowie. He supposes he’s what people call bisexual.”

Tuesday 11 January 2022

night stalker

Based on the then unpublished Jeff Rice novel The Kolchak Tapes, the ABC Movie of the Week, airing on this day in 1972, features Darren McGavin as an investigative reporter researching a spate of murders in Las Vegas, coming to suspect that the serial killer is a vampire. The most popular made-for-television-movie to date and spawning a miniseries and a sequel for the franchise, remembering this event in TV history, shared by some seventy-five million households in the US, inspired Chris Carter to later create The X-Files.

Sunday 9 January 2022

rms queen elizabeth

Whilst undergoing renovations to be re-christened as the “Seawise University,” the gargantuan ocean liner launched in 1938 and named in honour of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, caught on fire and was capsized in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong on this day in 1972. Tycoon and shipping magnate Tung Chao-yung had bought the decommissioned cruise ship with the intention of making her into a float international campus for a semester at sea programme two years earlier and there was some speculation that either insurance fraud or sabotage by Chinese ship-builders played a part in the destruction. The wreck was salvaged to prevent risk to other boats passing through the bay but about half of it remains at the bottom of the harbour and was the setting of a secret annex of MI6 in the 1974 Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun.

Saturday 8 January 2022

true love and apple pie

Originally the titular jingle, the lyrics were rewritten by Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway for a 1971 television commercial campaign performed by the Hillside Singers as “Buy the World a Coke,” with a message of hope, inclusivity and love—the closing tagline being “On a hilltop in Italy [Trident studios in London], we assembled young people from all over the world…” The British pop group the New Seekers (“Circles”with Harry Chapin, “Pinball Wizard” from Tommy, “Sing Hallelujah!”) recorded a full-length version of the song, dropping references to the soft-drink, which climbed to the top of UK singles charts on this day in 1972, ultimately going Gold and selling over a million copies. The Coca-Cola Company and advertising agency waived the rights to the song and instead made a substantial donation to UNICEF.

Monday 3 January 2022

das bayerisches restaurant-stรผck

The first of two forty-five minute specials (episode number one filmed the year before) by the Python troupe were first broadcast by ARD on this day in 1972 to audiences in West Germany and the behest of visiting television producer Alfred Biolek, who felt their absurdist brand of humour would translate well, though notably absent from the domestic comedy scene. Present in Munich first for the five hundredth anniversary celebrations of the birth of artist Albrecht Dรผrer and next for the Summer Olympics, this cultural backdrop informed their sketches. Beset with timing, pacing and interpretive problems (the first episode was performed in German and a challenge for the crew—the second instalment airing in mid-December was dubbed) and a lack-lustre initial audience reception, the pair of German episodes has an enduring charm.

Friday 31 December 2021

3 sutton place

The Burmese diplomat appointed as United Nations Secretary-General after the unexpected death of Dag Hammarskjรถld in 1961 declining overtures for a third-term, U Thant (แ€žแ€”့်, U being an honorific title and not a first or family name) stepped down on this day in 1971, having facilitated negotiations between Khrushchev and Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, intervened to avoid a chaotic break-up of Congo, overseeing the end of colonial rule for many states in Asia and Africa and was a vocal critic of America’s actions in Vietnam. His successor taking office on 1 January 1972, Kurt Waldheim—in 1986 during some opposition research whilst running for the Austrian presidency (which he won) was revealed to have been a Nazi intelligence officer during World War II—secured the seat accidentally after several rounds of the Security Council conclave failed to produce a winning candidate and three of the four member states with veto power (the USSR backed Waldheim) failed to coordinate their override and abstained instead. After Waldheim left office, incumbency was limited to two terms.

Friday 26 November 2021

when harry met santa

Fair warning—I thought it was too early for holiday commercials but this is a tear-jerker worth watching and it’s advisable to have some tissues handy—via World of Wonder, we are directed towards Posten Norge’s annual holiday greeting, which this year ahead of the fiftieth anniversary of Norway’s decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1972, featuring a multi-year courtship, whose brief annual encounters are finally extended a bit with the help of the Norwegian postal service. From all of us to all of you God jul!

Wednesday 24 November 2021

he’s so simple-minded, can’t drive his module

Released on this day in 1972 as the lead single from Aladdin Sane and recorded with his backing band the Spiders from Mars, David Bowie’s composition was an inspired assortment of supposed American trappings with the song’s protagonist a reference to criminal vagabond and French existential playwright Jean Genet, beginning its development as an improvised jam session on a tour bus between Cleveland and Memphis. The title lyric became the namesake of the 1977 Glasgow band Simple Minds. He bites on the neon and sleeps in the capsule. Loves to be loved.

Sunday 7 November 2021

facce di bronzo

Via the always superb Everlasting Blรถrt, we are not only introduced to the sensational discovery of the so-called Riace bronzes in the early 1970s but how the Italian mayor of the namesake town is planning a museum and further excavations on the fiftieth anniversary of their recovery from the waves off the Calabrian coast to see if there are more Greek warrior statues yet to be uncovered. Made in the fifth century BCE using the lost wax casting technique are among the few surviving examples of Greek artistry, most being melted down, and were found by accident by a snooping chemist called Stefano Mariottini in 1972 and are conjectured to be either anonymous Delphic soldiers as part of an ensemble monument to the Battle of Marathon or possibly as depictions of Erechtheus, foster son of Athena and legendary king of Athens, and Eumolpus, son of Poseidon and inventor of viticulture.

Friday 15 October 2021

lieutenant pigeon

Topping the UK charts this week in 1972, the novelty band’s song “Moldy Old Dough” (a play on the flexible jazz-era phrase vo-dee-o-doe) featured Rob Woodward and his mother Hilda respectively on keyboard and piano, not only making this short, endearing tune the only number one hit to feature mother and son but also the eldest woman to earn that distinction, aged fifty-eight at the time. The band from Coventry was the second incarnation of a project called Stavely Makepeace and subsequent recordings included “Desperate Dan,” “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen,” “Grandfather Clock,” and “Disco Bells.”

Saturday 7 August 2021

astrophilately

From the start of the Space Age and ensuing Space Race, adjacent stamp collecting became a serious pursuit with commemorative cover depicting every mission and milestone (see previously) with the bubble inflated to bursting with the scandal surrounding Apollo 15, returned to Earth on this day in 1971 with a payload of four hundred postage stamps sent to the Moon and back.

The astronauts had been compensated, bribed for sneaking the unauthorised souvenirs on board by West Germany dealer Hermann Sieger. The story broke the following year and though the money was returned and most of the remaining covers (the postal term for decorated, signed pre-stamped and cancelled envelops) were retained by the agency, museums or given as gifts, the astronauts were reprimanded for ethics violations and never flew on a mission again, reassigned to other departments within NASA. Such mementos were considered contraband for future missions.

Tuesday 6 July 2021

that weren’t no dj—that was hazy cosmic jive

Performing his new single Starman—his first charting hit since Space Oddity in 1969, David Bowie in the persona of Ziggy Stardust and band, the Spiders from Mars composed of Mick Ronson, Mick Woodmansey and Trevor Bolder, appeared on Top of the Pops on this day in 1972. Let all the children boogie.

Wednesday 30 June 2021

saut de seconde

Introduced for the first time on this day in 1972 and originally delegated to the Bureau International de l’Heure (BIH, the International Time Bureau at the Paris Observatory) to schedule their addition or subtraction, leap seconds (see also) are a way to adjust Universal Coordinated Time and synchronise the invariable atomic clocks that informs most civilian timekeeping with observed solar time, the Earth’s rotation prone to go off-kilter a bit due to geological, climatic changes or meteor impacts. Though implemented as a means to ensure accuracy and uniformity in an increasing interconnected and networked world and announced six months in advance, the irregularity of leap seconds can also reveal flaws in underlying programming, the pictured time-stamp causing Linux-based systems to crash back on that date.

Sunday 20 June 2021

the rose mary stretch

While later reviewing tape recording of a conversation held on this day in 1972 between White House chief-of-staff H.R. Haldeman and Richard Nixon three days after the Watergate break-in occurred, presidential secretary Ms. Woods admitted to a terrible clerical error during replay when she took a telephone call and held the combination of buttons and pedals that caused a portion of the tape to be re-recorded. Obliging Ms. Woods later demonstrated the pose that would have allowed for this accident to happen to a doubtful press, making her story all the more incredulous once it was revealed that the gap in the transcript was not the five-minute duration of the call but rather eighteen and a half minutes long. Three days after those lost conversations were held, the “smoking gun” reel documented—between the same two interlocutors—the plans to cover-up the bungled burglary and to curtail investigations by directing the Central Intelligence Agency to falsely assert to the FBI and local police that it was a matter of National Security. Once this tape became public, all remaining political support for Nixon, including fifteen Republican senators favouring acquittal, evaporated—though Nixon resigned in lieu of impeachment.

Saturday 12 June 2021

deep throat

Written and directed by Gerard Damiano and starring Linda Lovelace—though later reframed by the actress as coercion and sexual assault, considered one of the first pornographic films to include a plot and character development and heralded, along with Behind the Green Door, as “porno chic,” seen as a normalising, legitimising force for the subject matter for conservative US audiences, with many prominent celebrities, public figures and journalists admitting to having watched it, including Truman Capote, Spiro Agnew, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Carson and Barbara Walters, the title piece premiered on this day in New York City’s New World Adult Theatre in 1972, the use of the film as a culture reference and touchstone was cemented almost immediately when the managing-editor of the Washington Post chose “Deep Throat” as the code name for the secret Watergate insider (see also) who informed on Nixon—revealed thirty years later as assistant FBI director W. Mark Felt (*1913 - †2008).

Sunday 11 April 2021

ultra-violence

Via the forever engrossing Everlasting Blรถrt, we are directed towards a screen-test for the haberdashery of Alex DeLarge and his gang of droogs for the 1971 cinematic adaptation of the dystopian, delinquent novel from Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange (previously) trying on different hat styles before settling on the bowler variety. More images and reactions on the thread that are well worth checking out.