This episode kind of sums up everything we want to achieve with this series. A fascinating blend of popular culture, ideological struggles, and dreams of the future. It's fun and serious at the same time, dealing with something as complicated Soviet Russia and exploring it's relation to the zeitgeist of the era. So yeah basically what we're saying is, it's a cool episode. One more thing, the first melody Termen pieced together with his new invention was La Cygne from Camille Saint-Saëns' ""The Carnival of the Animals"". The song became a central part of the Theremin repertoire and you can listen to a haunting rendition of it here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pSzTPGlNa5U.html. Feel free to drop a comment below with your thoughts, just make sure it follows our rules of conduct.: community.timeghost.tv/t/rules-of-conduct/4518
Now you've got me wondering which has had the lasting, more pervasive impact on western entertainment? I'm guessing Frankenstein, but I don't listen to music much these days. I'm always streaming something.
I've just remembered an old Soviet joke which might cause, that time, an unpleasant conversation at KGB premises: - What is the Soviet power? - According to the mathematics' rules, if Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country, then Soviet power is Communism minus the electrification of the whole country.
@@charliehoran3680 I mean the late Soviet time, when I lived. I, personally, remember this Lenin's quote (as well as, the joke) from my school time in 1980'ies
Out of everything I read about Russian revolution and history of soviet block, the humor is what really stands out to me. The veiled criticisms of the regime and its bureaucracy. It really humanizes the history of the region. The people just trying to live their lives, get food and bread, while biting their tongue when the state rattles off revolutionary rhetoric.
Fun fact: Bob Moog built his first Theremin in 1949 at age 14, and then began to sell them in 1953. Moog Music has their line of famous synthesizers, but you can also buy a Moog Theremin to this day.
Yes and the basic model is drifty and tricky to supply power to. Besides other faults. But it's fun to play with. If you're serious get the modern model that's modern looking (and modern priced!) but it's something you can make actual music with.
These "in between the wars" episodes are pure gold. There is soooo much to learn about where "modern" stuff comes from, right there. Thank you all so much.
As always, very interesting coverage of a century ago. Speaking of that era, what I presume is a coal or wood stove has been a major part of your backdrop. The large masonry/ceramic stoves of mainly eastern Europe is a rather peculiar interest of mine and would appreciate some close-ups of the stove’s workings…..and assuming someone is around that remembers it’s use, a description of how well it worked.
Thanks for the kind words! Here's a bit of history on the stove. It’s a Dutch 18th masonry heater, also called ceramic heater that was originally in a mansion in Munich until WW2. It was then disassembled and stored in a cellar to preserve it from the wartime bombing. When Munich was being rebuilt the owners ended up never reinstalling it and instead sold it so that in 1947 it was installed here. The mason who installed it even came to visit a few years ago. He was in his late 90's and was on a tour together with his daughter to see all the masonry heaters he had installed during his career one last time. He installed this one and two more in the house we film in, one of them is a 19th century high end ceramic wood stove which is a miracle of technology - Spartacus still cooks on it once in a while.
Super interesting episode about the sci-fi part. Makes me hungry for a sci-fi miniseries like Indy was talking about. Speaking of miniseries, what is the status on The Troubles? Is it still happening in the near future?
I swear! Nobody reads a teleprompter better than Indy. I have some announcing experience and I assure you, public reading with enthusiasm is a rare talent that takes many hours of practice.
if you want to hear a Theremin played properly, check out the british mystery series "Midsomer Murders" for the first 15 season or so the opening cretids are played on one.
Well, Indy, I live in the city were the Dneper Damn was built. It was destroyed and then reconstructed after the war, it is quiet huge, some say, the Aswan damn in Egypt is the replica of the later damn but just in bigger scale.
Its interesting how the post-world war had great influence in culture. One can draw in the early film industry some of the parallels in great classic films like Phantom of the Opera and the Hunchback of Notre Dame as analogies to the Great War veterans coming back as horribly mutilated from the conflict. Frankenstein is a classic example of science going wrong like how the Great War ended up. Edit: I can't wait to see this channel cover the classic masterpiece of film, Battleship Potemkin.
spider...all sci-fi maniacs need to thank Jules and HG since they started the trend. Ms Christie (don't remember whether that was her surname after she married the second time) taught me English (a long time ago) after I discovered her books. Some people learn by watching soap operas but most by reading.
I'm sure it was blood. The blood of many grapes that were allowed to age a little till it went "funny". Most vampires like the blood to be "freshly squeezed" but, if not available, let age a few years, centuries if things are going well.
15:53 "if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear". Similar saying where I grew up: "if you can't be part of the herd, then be the wolf". This old saying is easily misunderstood IMO into meaning that people should fear you if they won't accept you. My understanding of that saying however is if people won't approve of you (or accept you) then endeavor that they at least respect you. A powerful metaphor for today's world.
8:52 In the Soviet Union, we had a joke (never said out loud) that Soviet power is Communism minus the electrification of the whole country. But there's still a great respect for those who've built all those powerlines for it was a very challenging task, especially in the cold and arid regions of the USSR.
I kinda miss Indy's Great War catchphrases, like "This was modern war", "Hundreds of thousands of men would die". I wonder if we get to here a "modern" rendition of them in an upcoming episode?
So we have Leon Teremin to thank for Good Vibration by the Beach Boys and to blame for Lothar & the Hand People. As for Roosevelt Field, you can't land a plane there anymore but you can get yourself a new set of sneakers or a pair of trousers since it's been a huge shopping mall since 1955.
Yes and no. Good vibrations wasn’t played on a Theremin. It used an instrument that sounded like a Theremin, but was much easier to play because it did away with the antennae. It used a slide to control pitch and was called the electrotheramin.
I made something resembling a Theremin in tech school using a sound effects chip in 1983. I stuck a piece of wire in my breadboard before connecting it to a capacitor/inductor pair and found that reaching for it created a sound much like the Theremins. I thought it was cool but it was too rinky dink for anyone to care about as we were building pc's at the time. I used it to switch on a lamp using a relay once, that was about it.
11:15 as an interesting sidenote, about 1970, when the current form of Mass was officially instituted, there was a petition from some in England for permission to continue using the Tridentine Mass. Agatha Christie (who wasn't a Catholic) signed the petition, and her signature is said to have made the difference when Saint Paul VI saw it, recognized who Agatha Christie was, got impressed, and granted the permission for some continued usage of the Tridentine Mass. It has since been informally known as the "Agatha Christie indult" (indult is a technical term for a special permission granted by the Supreme Pontiff).
Indy and TGH Team, are you guys planning to talk about the German Film Exodus to Hollywood? Conrad Veidt, Michael Curtiz, Fritz Lang, Marlene Dietrich...just to name a few? And most famous Theremin cues: The Day The Earth Stood Still, the Beach Boy’s “Good Vibrations” and, especially, The Theme for Dr. Who!
One of my favorite RU-vidrs is this Canadian guy named Brandon Tenold. He reviews cult films and provides funny commentary. He reviews a lot of foreign knockoffs of popular American films (mostly Turkish) and I got to tell these movies are insane to watch. A lot of the superhero knockoffs involves heroes who don't use guns in the original American films brutally killing criminals like gangsters and having weird sex scenes and going to strip clubs.
the Tennessee'ski Valley Authoritie'ski. the house Johnny Cash lived in as a kid had one electric light socket installed in it, 10 years before it got electricity.. that's optimism.
It's actually an "electro-theramin", controlled by a knob on the side. It's possible that Brian Wilson didn't know that it wasn't a true theramin. It still sounds great though.
Just had a *whoa* moment...I'm playing the city-building game "Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic", and when you start on the clean slate map, the first thing you need is a Power Plant. So, now I'm wondering if that was on purpose b/c of this electrification vision.
Part of what few understand today about the difference between American and Soviet ambitions is that the USA was already the most modern state on Earth - ahead in education, electrification, standard of living. The USSR was a basket case due to unremitting feudalist exploitation - peasants, quite recently serfs (land slaves), without shoes in winter. The USSR was a brutal dungeon regime. But it did also succeed in elevating the standard of living of the proportion of the population it _didn't imprison or murder_ in unprecedented time.
Rupert the show had a good theme song, cant imagine the international on Theramin or Etherphone, espionage interesting and maybe clarify how it became more commonly known as Theramin, enjoyed.
There seems to be a new prop on the left side of the set to Indy's right. A carefully placed plant has a flower covering the lady in green's right breast.
One small nitpick! It's pronounced Robert Mohg not a long oo sound. I normally don't care about such pendantry but since this is historical document such pendantry matters! Also Beach Boys - Good Vibrations is probably the greatest known song that uses a theremin but I would imagine licensing the Beach Boys is way too expensive.
Lev's "music"...composers have been trying to find new compositions since the Italian masters of opera of the 19th century (and the others from other centuries). Great tie...although it may not be the best look for the striped shirt.
Oddly enough I think you're the first person I've ever heard refer to Robert Moog as Robert Moog and not Bob Moog, and this includes people in the city he lives in that I know
Love this episode. For the record, though, Bob Moog pronounced his name as though it rhymes with Rogue. As a play on this pronunciation, there is an instrument sound known as the "Moogerfooger." ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UDN-y0QQ7cs.html
My uncle Sitor in Detroit since WWI. He'd always considered himself a Socialist and kept a favorable and optimistic view of the Soviet Union. He went back to visit family in the USSR in the early 1970s. Same shacks, same lack of glass in the windows! same gathering of twigs for the stove. In over 50 years of Communism - nothing had changed. The implication here is that Lenin was right: if Soviet Communism was to succeed it would have to embrace science, electrify and modernize the USSR - and it failed. Can you imagine an Elon Musk, Tesla, Space X in a Soviet Union? It would've been, 'Listen kid, sounds good, but you don' t yet have the seniority. And your X.com money idea?? It does away with the jobs of bank workers - not captialism. And electric cars will happen - someday. A similar experience was had by engineer Sandy Munro at Ford Motor Company. "I was there a full year and I couldn't get one single change. Not one!" he said this on a video where he was pointing out things in a new Model 3 that he'd simply made the suggestion about to Tesla. Within weeks Tesla had implemented them and put them into cars being produced." I guess I'm tilting over into political analysis (hopefully not polemics) here. I think we should keep in mind the reason people do not like authoritarian rule is 1. it's stupid (all controlling regimes have to be based on lies. If you agree with our collective lie - you're one of us. If you only trust say, physics? We can't trust you.) 2. it quickly becomes bureaucratic and corrupt. (I think people would rather pay a small bribe than deal with more paperwork. Of course the problem with both is they grow exponentially. Greed that motivates corruption is understandable, but how is it that bureaucracy grows so fast? Maybe corruption is like rats and bureaucracy is like mold. I know a rat is hungry, insatiable and clever - but what motivates mold?) I should delete this...but what the heck. Sometimes your uncle's slightly skewed way of looking at things has some merit.
