Filmmaker Jeff Desom recut the scenes from Alfred Hitchock’s Rear Window (1954) viewed out the apartment window into one video. In the original movie, L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies, played by James Stewart, is confined in a wheelchair with a broken leg and spends his time watching his neighbors through the window of his Greenwich Village apartment. Eventually, he begins to suspect that one of his neighbors murdered his wife. Jeff then convinces his girlfriend, played by Grace Kelly, to help him investigate. Did he see what he thinks he saw, or is he imagining things?
Desom’s complete 20-minute recut of the window scenes from Rear Window, entitled Rear Window Loop, is not online. But a making-of video called Rear Window Timelapse contains three minutes of what Jimmy Stewart saw outside his window in the film. Check it out.
Desom tells a little more about the process of creating the film in a recent interview. He completed the project by himself in six weeks for a Luxembourg club to show on a screen above the bar. Hopefully nobody gets so drunk they think they witnessed an actual murder.
What do you think of the Rear Window recut? Leave your two cents in the comments.
At Churchill Downs this morning, heavy rain led organizers to cancel morning training for today’s 138th running of the Kentucky Derby horse race. Handicappers and others wondered how the muddy track and possible additional rain may affect the horses in the race. But the skies cleared and sun came through by the time of the race, which was won by I’ll Have Another, who with 14-1 odds overcame the favorite Bodemeister.
When I think of “Kentucky Rain,” one song comes to mind. “Kentucky Rain” was written by country star Eddie Rabbitt and Dick Heard, but made famous by Elvis Presley. While there are a ton of Elvis performances on YouTube, they do not appear to include any live footage of Elvis singing this hit. But here is a good video that someone put together with images from the King’s career.
According to Ernst Jorgensen’s Elvis Presley: A Life in Music – The Complete Recording Sessions (p. 275), Elvis first recorded “Kentucky Rain” during RCA sessions on February 19, 1969 at American Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. Elvis started the song around 7:30 p.m. in the evening, and the musicians found the song challenging as they worked to add a little edge and a little brightness to the sound. They worked on the song for three hours, took a short break, and returned to the song for several more hours at 11:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m. The hard work paid off, and afterward everyone involved believed the song about a man searching for his lost love could be a potential single.
Additions that helped make the song a classic was the backing vocals and piano playing of a future star named Ronnie Milsap. During the recording session, Elvis turned to the young musician and asked, “Hey Milsap, can I get a little bit of thunder over there on the piano?” So, Milsap supplied the thunder for the song in a technique he would later use on his own 1980 rain song, “Smoky Mountain Rain.”
Jorgensen’s book says “Kentucky Rain” was released in February 1970 (but Wikipedia claims the song was released January 29, 1970). The song went to number sixteen on the pop charts. For Elvis, the song was his fiftieth gold record. For Ronnie Milsap, it was the beginning of a great career. Similarly, for songwriter Eddie Rabbitt, it signaled to his parents that maybe he would amount to something. For me, who was a young kid at the time, it is one of the new Elvis releases I remember hearing on the radio. I still love hearing it today.
[Thanks to @jonniebwalker for pointing out that Milsap played piano as well as sang on “Kentucky Rain.”]
What do you think of “Kentucky Rain”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Nine other students were wounded, and those who were shot included students on their way to class. The exact events of that date are still in dispute, with some of those involved still seeking answers.
Events Leading to the Kent State Shootings
The anti-war demonstrations began days earlier after President Nixon announced on television on April 30 that U.S. forces had invaded Cambodia. Pres. Nixon presented the invasion as a defensive response meant to help end the Vietnam War. But students and demonstrators believed the announcement revealed the war was escalating and expanding.
Watch Pres. Nixon’s address in the video below.
The day after Nixon’s address, on May 1 students began demonstrating at Kent State University. After some confrontations between local police and demonstrators, Ohio Governor James Rhodes called out the National Guard.
On May 4, members of the Guard used tear gas to disperse protesters. And while the protesters were in retreat, suddenly over the course of 13 seconds, 67 bullets were fired, resulting in the deaths and injuries.
Questions About the Shootings
A big question remaining is whether or not someone gave an order to fire on the demonstrators. At a 2012 news conference, seven of the people who were wounded that day announced a campaign to convince officials to hold hearings on the question. They claimed that analysis of audio recordings shed new light on the question, apparently revealing that there was an order to fire.
The group sought public support for the government inquiries. They said they did not seek individual prosecutions. Instead, they sought answers. Those questions and answers are still relevant today, as addressed in an excellent essay by Jesse Kornbluth at Huffington Post.
But subsequently in 2012, the FBI concluded the new tapes were inconclusive. The Department of Justice decided not to re-open the case. [2015 Update] Having failed to get the review they wanted in the U.S., the Kent State Truth Tribunal subsequently requested a review by the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
Neil Young’s “Ohio”
In 1970, the Kent State shootings became national news, affecting everyone who read about it, including a young songwriter. After seeing photos in Life magazine, Neil Young wrote the song “Ohio.”
Then, Young’s group Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young recorded the song only 11 days after the tragedy and then quickly released it as a single. Young later noted that David Crosby broke down and cried after the recording.
The video below for “Ohio” was put together by a talented YouTuber. Check it out.
“Ohio,” which first appeared on an album as a live song on Four Way Street (1971), stirred up some controversy for its criticism of Pres. Nixon. But the song went on to become a classic. It has been covered by a number of artists, including the Isley Brothers on Givin’ It Back (1971).
Rolling Stone lists “Ohio” as the 365th greatest rock song of all time. The song deserves a spot in the rankings as there are few songs that were so immediate about a current event. And there are few songs with such unanswered questions four decades after the song’s release.
Former Swiss fighter pilot Yves Rossy used a winged jetpack to fly over Rio de Janeiro today, reaching speeds up to 186 miles per hour. All I can say, is that it is about time! When I was a kid, I was under the impression we’d all be using jetpacks to travel by now.
Anyway, Rossy cheated a little because he had to launch from a helicopter and then use a parachute to land. But the video is still pretty cool.
The 11-minute-and-35-second flight was not Rossy’s first. Rossy, who began working on the project in 1993, flew over the English Channel in 2008 and has also flown over the Grand Canyon. Speaking of wings and jets, it seems the most appropriate music to salute Rossy’s flight is “Jet” by Wings.
“Jet” is from the excellent album Band on the Run (1974). What is it about? According to Wikipedia, McCartney explained in an interview that it is about a pony he once owned. Well, we have come a long way since the days of traveling by pony. Here’s to my future jetpack, “with the wind in your hair of a thousand laces / Climb on the back and we’ll / Go for a ride in the sky.”
What do you think of the jetpack flight? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Project Nim (2011) is a fascinating documentary that follows the life of Nim, a chimpanzee who was part of an experiment in teaching chimps to communicate. Nim Chimpsky, named with a humorous nod to linguist Noam Chomsky, became famous for his ability to use sign language as part of a study by Herbert Terrace, a Columbia University behavioral psychologist. The documentary shows the ups and downs of Nim’s life where he is repeatedly removed from his environment in the name of science. The film asks questions about the role of communication and our human relationships to animals.
Although the movie shows Nim repeatedly abandoned, it also features several people who cared very much about the chimp. Ultimately, it’s the human stories in the film that make the movie compelling. While Nim’s behavior is interesting to the scientists because it tells us about chimps, the behavior of the people in Nim’s life is what makes the film interesting. Because it tells us more about us.
Bonus Review (Because why should you trust me?): Ethicist Peter Singer wrote an interesting essay about the film, the science about animals’ use of language, and the ethics of scientific experiments on primates in the New York Times Review of Books. What did you think of Project Nim? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Filmmaker Jeff Desom recut the scenes from Alfred Hitchock’s Rear Window (1954) viewed out the apartment window into one video. In the original movie, L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies, played by James Stewart, is confined in a wheelchair with a broken leg and spends his time watching his neighbors through the window of his Greenwich Village apartment. Eventually, he begins to suspect that one of his neighbors murdered his wife. Jeff then convinces his girlfriend, played by Grace Kelly, to help him investigate. Did he see what he thinks he saw, or is he imagining things?
