February 5 in History

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

A movie reviewer for the Los Angeles Times wrote that the new film “drags terribly with a long and tiresome chase of one [train] engine by another.” The film under review was Buster Keaton’s The General, which debuted in the Capitol Theater in New York City 90 years ago today.

The film flopped. Up to this point, Keaton possessed complete creative control over his film comedies, and Metro and United Artists gave him a $750,000 budget to make the Civil War-era film, which tells a true story in a mode that Hollywood―and its audiences―was not yet accustomed to: action-adventure-comedy. The film earned back less than $500,000 at the box office. Keaton’s next contract with MGM restricted him to comedies and did not allow him to direct. He descended into alcoholism.
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February 4 in History

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

A web site, Thefacebook.com, was launched on this date in 2004 on the campus of Harvard University by Mark Zuckerberg and others. It was a successor site to one called “Facemash” that had been created just months before. Within hours of its launch, thousands of Harvard students had registered, and within its first week, the first lawsuits were filed.
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Against ‘Protest Fatigue’

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

I noticed after we had parted that my friend and I spent our conversation on Monday speaking in hushed tones, that we each ran through our own internal post-election checklist with the other before we proceeded; mine went something like: I know my friend is on my side but I haven’t seen anything on her Facebook feed recently, so when she asks “How are you?” answer her with generalities and let her be specific first.

We hugged hello. “How are you doing?” she asked. I replied with the specifically general (or generally specific), “Today?” and a weak shrug.

She spoke first. “I haven’t talked with you since the election? How are you holding up?” She confessed that she has felt overwhelmed since Inauguration Day. I confessed to the same sensation. “The worst appears to be coming to pass and it looks like they are trying to make it happen faster than anyone seemed prepared for,” I added.
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