Few days ago Venus mentioned klezmer-punk band Golem in one of her posts. I looked up few of their videos and one song sounded vaguely familiar:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze6ONmmBBbA
This is their take on the famous Yiddish song Rumania, Rumania originally composed and performed by Aaron Lebedeff. It just happened that the same day I was watching “The Komediant” – a documentary about a world famous Yiddish actor Pesachke Burstein. The movie mentioned that his son – Mike Burstyn grew up among famous Jewish performers and that Aaron Lebedeff himself taught Mike to sing “Rumania” while he was still in the stroller. The DVD included this version of “Rumania” performed by Mike Burstyn and Bruce Adler:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISC9f6emB_c
You can pick your own favorite, personally I didn’t care for the punk version. Not everything can be punked up.
Long time ago (and I mean long,long time) I was traveling in what was then a beautiful and welcoming Republic of Georgia, still a part of soon to be defunct Soviet Union. Georgia is known for its beauty, Caucasus mountains and warm beaches on the Black Sea, ancient cultural relics, great food and some of the best wine in the world, and as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin. Stalin was born in the City of Gori which was a huge source of pride for the Georgian people. When Stalin was alive, his portraits, monuments and various other likenesses were literally everywhere. After Stalin’s Cult of Personality was condemned in 1956 most of this junk was removed and one of the few places that kept all of it’s pre-1956 glory was the City of Gori. From the huge portrait of Stalin at the entrance to the railway station to his monument and museum at his birthplace, complete with Stalin’s personal rail car, the city looked like the old days when it was the Birthplace of the “beloved” leader.
By the time I was born all of the history books and movies were edited not to dwell on Stalin’s persona and the horrors during his regime. In the movies he was shown as a wise man of a few words, issuing battle-winning military directives, and in the books there may have been a mention or two about the cult of personality. It wasn’t a secret but it wasn’t talked about either. As it turned out later,everything was much worse than it was presented in 1956. So when I found myself staring in amazement at something I have never seen in my lifetime, I didn’t really think twice about standing at the birthplace of evil, on the contrary, it was neat to take a step back in time.
A lot has changed since I stood next to the Stalin’s rail car in Gori. There is no Soviet Union, Georgia is not so welcoming anymore, and I don’t have curls. I found this old photo in my album and thought about my careless youth and fun memories I still have from that time.
One of my favorite scenes from the movie Apollo 13 is when a bunch of engineers remap the spaceship’s trajectory with nothing but a pen, paper and a slide rule.
This almost seems impossible in this day and age, when we delegate all of our calculations to a computer. I may be a part of a dying breed of people who can still figure things out without the calculator, but I can’t take credit for this – in my day we just didn’t have calculators; I got my first one after the 8th grade. Trigonometric tables, slide rules, pen, paper or even a chalkboard were just as much a part of my education as computers in today’s schools. There is nothing wrong with using technology but it’s amazing what we can do without it.
This was a long and winded introduction to the old photos of the Severe Local Storm Warning Center (SELS) which was located in Kansas City from 1954 to 1997 (brief history of SELS could be found here). Long before the word meteorologist was associated with associated with clueless jokers on TV, these people were saving lives without 3-D motion maps, scary graphics and “one degree guarantees”. I don’t know how accurate these guys were but given what they had to work with our modern TV meteorologists wouldn’t know where to start. Apparently technology does not a meteorologist make.
Sorry for two billboard posts in a row, but what can I do – they are putting them up faster than I can stop and take a picture.
A thought about making this one into a caption contest but I don’t think you can beat mine (see the title of this post). If you manage to do better than I did, I might come up with a prize – a beer or a magazine subscription – something. Good luck and remember to lock up your jewelry stash or someone will get paid to party!
Long time ago (and I mean long,long time) I was traveling in what was then a beautiful and welcoming Republic of Georgia, still a part of soon to be defunct Soviet Union. Georgia is known for its beauty, Caucasus mountains and warm beaches on the Black Sea, ancient cultural relics, great food and some of the best wine in the world, and as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin. Stalin was born in the City of Gori which was a huge source of pride for the Georgian people. When Stalin was alive, his portraits, monuments and various other likenesses were literally everywhere. After Stalin’s Cult of Personality was condemned in 1956 most of this junk was removed and one of the few places that kept all of it’s pre-1956 glory was the City of Gori. From the huge portrait of Stalin at the entrance to the railway station to his monument and museum at his birthplace, complete with Stalin’s personal rail car, the city looked like the old days when it was the Birthplace of the “beloved” leader.
