In the middle of the twentieth century, fear and paranoia were ingrained into the subconscious of every American. The 1957 launch of the Sputnik satellite had Americans wary of Soviet attack from the skies. And the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 assured the world that Soviet Premier Khrushchev was serious in his threat when he said “We will bury you.” The spectre of mutually assured...
Ever wonder how early computer animations was created? This video from 1971, complete with spacey synthetic music, demonstrates not only one of the first interactive computer systems for animation, one used for production, it was also an outstanding example of early user-centered design, including one of the first computer mice. The system was developed by Marceli Wein and Nestor Burtnyk, both of whom won Academy...
After Playboy magazine made its mark in the early 1950s, imitators of all kinds sprang up with titles like Sir, Knight, and Gent. In 1957, one publisher took a devilish bent and called its new magazine Satan. Satan was little more than a Playboy clone. Both magazines had pin-ups, articles on the urban bachelor lifestyle, a jokes page, and an iconic anthropomorphic mascot. But maybe...
Iluzjon is an exhibition that showcases the very best of Polish film and theatre posters from the 1960s and 1970s, collected by Eye Sea Posters. These posters were commissioned by state controlled film and theatre institutions during the communist era in Poland, in order to create alternative imagery to the foreign originals they deemed inappropriate to use as advertising. Often they had little visual reference...
Inspired by similar restaurants serving motorists in Los Angeles, Mel Weiss and Harold Dobbs founded Mel’s Drive-In restaurants in 1947 in San Francisco, California. Night and day, hordes of patrons that fancied dining-in-your-car came early and often. It didn’t take long for the first restaurant to multiply into eleven. In 1972, the original Mel’s located at 140 South Van Ness in San Francisco was selected...
Before we get started, I need to point this out to you. Bond, for me, is Dr. No-Die Another Day. Daniel Craig does not exist. We won’t get into the debates here, because I’m trying to focus on the good, not the bad. So I won’t be mentioning how Pee Wee Herman would make a better Bond, or how they ruined one of my favorite...
The Golden Age of Las Vegas has been over for quite some time. If you don’t count auxiliary members like Shirley MacLaine, Buddy Greco, or Angie Dickinson, the last member of The Rat Pack, Joey Bishop, passed away in 2007. He outlived Frank by 9, Dino by 12, Sammy by 17, and Peter by 23 years. Even the buildings, which are supposed to outlive those...
