Cards from the Past

Yup, these pieces of correspondence were part of the commercial lifeblood of both the periodical world and the post office.

This is a 1978 sweepstakes come-on from RD.  No, we never won anything from them.

We were with Cox from when they first hung cable in OKC (around 1979????) until around 2000, when their incessant rate hikes chased us away.  We were NEVER late in our payments, however inflated.

I have several of these puppies.  This one is addressed to "contest entrant," but I pestered those poor folks at The Twilight Zone Magazine at least half-a-dozen times.

Have you ever read a nicer rejection letter?

An aside to my snide friends:  I don't keep EVERYTHING.  I used all of these as bookmarks.

See ya Monday!

  

Worlds of Tomorrow!

As a longtime member of the defunct STAR OKC, the alive-and-well Soonercon and the Future Society of Oklahoma, as you might imagine I'm a sci-fi fan. Here's a VERY top-of-the-pile survey of a few concepts of some might-come-to-pass Worlds of Tomorrow.

Worlds of Tomorrow

            After the end of Star Trek’s run, Gene Roddenberry pitched several projects to the TV networks—to be honest, it was one idea, continually redressed. All were set on a future Earth, in the aftermath of a planetwide war. The TV-movie Genesis II aired in 1973, and starred a 20^th-Century man awakening in 2133 in an Earth populated by splintered outposts of mankind. A reworked version, Planet Earth, aired in 1974. A third telefilm based on the concept was broadcast in 1975. Its title—Brave New World.

            Miranda is the daughter of the sorcerer Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. When some mariners are shipwrecked on their barren island, she begs her father to save them. She eventually marries one of the refugees, the prince of Naples. In the play’s final scene, she addresses the crowd who is celebrating the nuptials:

O wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,

That has such people in't.

            Some pop groups have given the phrase “Brave New World” a sarcastic spin. Jimmy and the Boys’ 1981 “Brave New World” narrates a society populated by genderless workers whose mindless activity feeds the machines of progress. “Brave New World” by the Tender Violent Chords, from 1982, looks forward to spaceships and satellite eyes that watch the world without emotion.

            Some “new worlds” aren’t that great. Aldous Huxley’s dystopian look at a fascist future, the 1932 novel Brave New World, was a satirical riposte against the utopian dreams of H.G. Wells. In the future of Huxley’s tale, bottle babies and strict social castes are the norm. Technology’s sole aim is to keep the lower classes occupied so that the upper castes may indulge their government-sanctioned fancies. Huxley’s satirical title was a direct reference to Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

 Among the music groups or artists with releases titled Brave New World:

• Iron Maiden (heavy metal, 2000)
• Toyah (new wave, 1982)
• Styx (rock, 1999)
• Moskwa TV (synth-pop, 1987)
• Fuzzy Logic (jazz-funk, 1995)
• New Model Army (punk, 1985)
• Hawklords (space rock, 2018)
• David Essex (pop, 1978)
• The Bongos (new wave, 1985)
• Genetic Control (2005, punk)
• DDT (alternative, 1983)
• Ana Christensen (alternative. 1990)
• Steve Miller Band (rock, 1969)

       Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 foresaw a future in which independent thought is stifled through the suppression of books and learning. Bradbury originally said that the book was conceived in reaction to the McCarthy hearings’ chilling effect on free speech. In 2007, he revised his opinion to say that the book’s allegory also applies to mass media’s effect in reducing consumers’ interest in reading and literature.

            Perhaps the best-known tale of a future fascist state is George Orwell’s 1984, the tale of a metaphorical boot crushing a human face—forever. It’s a world full of surveillance and government-run everything. Who would want a world in which your TV watches you? Hello, Alexa!

            Some of the current organizations that claim to be working on a wonderful future world are the World Future Society; the World Future Council (offices in Hamburg, London, and Geneva); and the Future Worlds Center (based in Cyprus). Don’t forget the Association of Professional Futurists, or the World Futures Studies Federation, founded in 1973. Or our own Future Society of Oklahoma!

             Plenty of pop songs look ahead in time. Here are only a few: “Song for a Future Generation” by the B-52’s; “This Used to Be the Future” by the Pet Shop Boys; “The Future that Never Was” by Powerman 5000; “A Better Future” by David Bowie; and two songs called “Children of the Future.” One’s from the Steve Miller Band; the other is by Bloc Party.

See you on Thursday!