We talk about journalist Joan Didion's second compilation of articles, published in 1979. Didion might be the harshest, most biting social commentator while at the same time managing to be perfectly nice about it.
We talk about the 1972 film Trouble Man featuring one of the coolest private eyes in cinema history.
We discuss David Talbot's love letter to San Francisco during the latter half of the 20th century.
We discuss a mysterious & little known Long Seventies aesthetic phenomenon we call The Smoothening.
We discuss the Netflix documentary Fear City about the Feds' and NYC govt's takedown of the New York Mafia.
We retroperspect on the last year's episodes and make some long shot predictions about 1970s history podcast episodes in the next year.
In Feb 1981, Joey Coyle, a Philly longshoreman, found $1.2 million in cash in the middle of the road and decided to keep it. Too bad the money belonged to the Federal Reserve and they wanted it back.
We discuss the broad course of 20th century scientific inquiry into the ability to control the Mind of Man, and how initial projects aimed at creating secret super assassins trickled down to manipulating people into buying running shoes and bad pop albums.
We talk about the Chuck Norris classic Good Guys Wear Black and the best stretch jeans on the market.
We discuss the Acali Experiment, an "only could have happened in the 70s" adventure/scientific experiment where a scientist sets sail on the high seas with a nubile crew of test subjects to determine how human nature will manifest in the worst of conditions.
We talk about the movie The Towering Inferno.
We do a Long Seventies Award show.
We have an off the cuff discussion of the Long Seventies paradigm shift from Liberalism to Neoliberalism witnessed across society and Foreign Relations.
We talk about the 1979 film “Over the Edge.” Misunderstood miscreants, Jr. High School dope dealers, antisocial antiestablishment antimonies take on suburban america in this surreal and absurdist take on youth in America during the Long Seventies.
We talk about the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island in SF Bay by the Indians of All Tribes activist group, and provide some important context and background to understand this important event.
In this holiday Substitute Teachercast we present another educational film from the golden years of American 16mm (1969). This is “Drug Abuse: The Chemical Tomb.” The title says it all.
We talk about the tragic but probably fictional story about 15 year old Alice and her decent into drug abuse as portrayed in the 1973 made for tv movie Go Ask Alice.
We talk about the 1973 Oil Crisis. Obviously.
We talk about the 1974 film The Parallax Movie starring Warren Beatty and talk about how paranoia and distrust of institutions sunk roots deep into the American psyche during the long seventies.
We talk about the eccentric and brilliant jazz musician/band leader Sun Ra’s 1974 movie Space Is the Place and its connection to Afrofuturism and Afrofuturism’s 20th century roots in new religious movements.
We talk about the giant boom in imported Japanese musical gear during the Long Seventies and what effect it had on music during and after the time period.
We talk about 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, a seminal film in the annals of the horror genre and doing a little brainstorming as to why the movie was so frightening to audiences of the Long Seventies.
In 1971 a small group of anti-war activists successfully pulled of a plot to break into an FBI office, steal secret files & get them published by a major newspaper, beginning the process of outing COINTELPRO.
We talk about the 1970 documentary Chariots of the Gods based on Erich Von Daniken’s book the spawned the ancient aliens craze. Also some rambling about memetic theory and how the west went through an epistemic crisis in the Long Seventies.
We talk about the history of American MONEY, banking & Nixon closing the Gold Window in 1971 after a bank run on the Federal Reserve and Fort Knox.
We talk about the era of existential car chases through the lens of Hollywood vision and Detroit muscle.
We introduce the Decade of Dope series and talk about the history of drugs from Mesopotamia to Richard Nixon.
We talk about the quintessential Boston crime novel, The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1970) and compare it to the film adaptation, starring Robert Mitchum. Hard boiled dialogue and hard nosed criminals trying to avoid doing hard time.
We talk about post-period horror movies that are throwbacks to the Long Seventies genre and discuss how the concept of Hauntology might explain why TLS is such a rich source of cultural artifacts for filmmakers to unearth and recycle.
We intro our new plans for 2021 including new release schedule and some soon to be covered episode topics.
