Thursday, March 15, 2007

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: footnotes


cover


In a tribute to T. S. Eliot and Oliver Sacks, I thought I would provide a few footnotes to the most recent FIMP Book of the Month, "The Revolution". That's the cover up there, and here comes the first couple of pages.


pages 1 & 2


"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is the first line of a very widely quoted poem by Gil Scott-Heron, which he first recorded in 1970, accompanied by congas and bongo drums. The video below will give you the poem in full. . .



Cell phone video is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its invention by Philippe Kahn this year.


The revolution being caught on video on page 1 is Eugene Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People", painted in 1830.


pages 3 & 4


You Tube was Time's Invention of the Year for 2006. Everything on video ends up on You Tube at one point or another.

OMG translates to "Oh My God!" in the world of text messaging, internet chatrooms and online discussion boards. LMAO is "Laughing My Ass Off". Use them wisely.


pages 5 & 6


Recently in the grocery store I was eavesdropping on a conversation about someone who was dressed "all crazy and shit". I would like to see what that looks like.

It's possible that visitors from outside the U.S. might not recognize the three seated figures on the bottom right of the page as the three judges from "American Idol", a very popular television talent show devoted to incredibly generic popular music. Here the judges are assessing the performance of Che Guevara (1928 - 1967), a Marxist Revolutionary who has appeared on more t-shirts, coffee mugs, and baseball caps than any American Idol winner ever will.


This photograph by Alberto Korda is the iconic Che Guevara that appears on all of those t-shirts.


back cover


So there you have it, book lovers. You subscribers out there - you're fantastic.

1 comment:

Judith Hoffman said...

Another really great one Marc. I just mentioned "The Revolution" in my blog. I took the photo, because I couldn't find any detailed shots of your ABOTMC books on your web site. It turns out I should have just been more diligent in my blog reading. I hope the photo is okay with you - let me know if you want me to remove it.