Today in History: June 10

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Dr. Bob Smith, a surgeon in Akron, Ohio, had his last drink on this date in 1935. His alcoholism had bedeviled him for decades. The organization that he and a stockbroker named Bill Wilson founded, Alcoholics Anonymous, considers this to be its founding moment.

* * * *
The final episode of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s television series Twin Peaks aired on ABC 25 years ago today. It was the 22nd episode of the show’s second season and its 29th episode overall. The wrong Agent Cooper appeared to have exited the Black Lodge. (Next year, Showtime will run a new series of 18 episodes, all written by Lynch and Frost and directed by David Lynch.) The show’s credits (below the jump):
Read More

Making Change(s)

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Did Gandhi say, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world?” Nope. The story is more complicated than that.

* * * *
In his bestselling book, “Earth in the Balance” (1992), Al Gore recounts the story of watching his six-year-old son be hit by a car, and the months he and his wife spent nursing the boy back to health. That six-year-old is now in his 30s.

He writes that “something changed in a fundamental way” for him that year, 1989: he turned 40, watched his son almost die, and lost the 1988 Presidential election. (He came in a distant “I don’t remember him running that year” in the primaries to Michael Dukakis.)
Read More

Today in History: June 9

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Les Paul (above) was born 101 years ago today. Even if you do not remember or can not name any of his couple dozen hit songs, if you are listening to music at this moment, you are listening to his influence, no matter what style of music you have on. For one thing, he invented multi-track recording in the 1940s, so unless you are listening to a monaural recording on an acetate disc from before that era, you are listening to a multi-track recording.

It is true that multi-track recording is one of those things that someone was going to invent out of necessity, but Les Paul is the man who responded to that necessity with his own ingenuity.
Read More