10 PRINT "NOSTALGIA", 20 GOTO 10 – Wired reminisces about BASIC
Yoy Luadha / 9:58 am PT Sun Aug 4, 2024
Computer PET (dean bertoncelj / Shutterstock.com)
When I was a kid, I briefly had a friend who built the first computer I ever saw. I long ago forgot the friend's name, but I remember the name he gave the computer: Laurie (after Laurie Partridge, natch). It had one simple Star Trek game that somehow involved acquiring and shooting photon torpedoes. For me, this was a rare moment of true wonder — like Laura Dern seeing dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Or Anthony Michael Hall seeing Kelly LeBrock in Weird Science. You know — total, overwhelming awe.
Clive Thompson's piece in Wired is a love letter to programming in BASIC and, more generally, that era when a rudimentary computer language felt like a journey into a new and exciting future.
I was entering the miseries of seventh grade in the fall of 1980 when a friend dragged me into a dimly lit second-floor room. The school had recently installed a newfangled Commodore PET computer, a squat and angular box that glowed in the corner. "You gotta try this," he told me, and handed over a piece of paper on which he'd handwritten a program.
I plunked it out on the PET's chunky mechanical keyboard.
10 PRINT "CLIVE"
20 GOTO 10
I typed "RUN," hit Enter, and watched as my name spilled down the screen in bright green-on-black text, over and over.
For a 12-year-old in the pre-internet era? This was electrifying. I had typed a couple of commands—ones that seemed easily understandable—and the machine had obeyed. I felt like I'd just stolen fire from Zeus himself.
See what I mean — awe. But then we also grok how quickly this new power can go haywire:
I also realized, studying that tiny two-line program, that it was an infinite loop. The computer would run the code until the sun burned out, or someone unplugged it. There are not many ways, when you're a preteen, to grasp the fabric of infinity. But I'd just done so, thanks to this strangely accessible computer language: BASIC.
Clive's essay goes on to look at how the earliest computer languages evolved.
Beyond rudimentary BASIC, I've never coded in my life. But this really brought me back to that special time when we were dimly aware that we were on the cusp of a revolution, at an inflection point in human history.
Read Clive Thompson's work in Boing Boing
HBO's "Disciple" reveals the untold story of Stevie Van Zandt's musical odyssey
Yoy Luadha / 8:57 am PT Sun Aug 4, 2024
Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple | Official Trailer | HBO
Times change. Trends and memes come and go faster and faster these days. That's why there's so much meaning and emotion tied up in the few things that have stuck.
This HBO doc, Disciple, looks back at the life and career of possibly the greatest side man of all time, Little Stevie Van Zandt, aka Miami Steve. For fifty years he's brought joy and excellence and humility to everything he's touched, from playing music to producing and curating other bands to acting to charity work. He's a true original.
One thing I found fascinating: footage of Bruce and Stevie and Southside Johnny in the early '70s — all equals, all starting out together, just kids trying to rock out. But it quickly becomes apparent that one of these three ain't like the others. Whatever that X factor is, that leap from really great to genius, is on full display in this doc — it's instantly apparent that Bruce is other level. Little Stevie will make the Rock 'n Roll HOF, but as a sideman in the E Street Band, not the leader of his own band, The Disciples of Soul.
I tried to take a big step back, to see these guys without the knowledge of what's to come. It's hard to do, but I still think it's obvious that Bruce was special, even then, right from jump street. I suppose there are some timelines in the multiverse in which Bruce never became The Boss, but it's hard to imagine.
Bruce and The E Street Band are in London right now and, in this profile in The Times, Stevie is his usual funny, joyous, humble self.
"I don't want to be the centre of attention," he tells me… "It's embarrassing. I'm not shy but I don't want to be the main man. I learnt to be a frontman with my own band but I never needed the spotlight — and superstars, they do need it."
More than just a musician, he's a repository of music history — a big part of his mission is to make sure that older music continues to live.
Van Zandt is a connoisseur of popular music history. As Paul McCartney drily confesses in Disciple, "I know a lot but Stevie knows more." The guitarist has dedicated much of the past quarter of a century, since he rejoined the E Street Band in 1999 after a 15-year hiatus, to disseminating that encyclopaedic knowledge. His weekly radio show is syndicated to 200 stations across America, playing obscure classics from 60 years ago alongside little-known contemporary bands. He has a record label and periodically puts together line-ups for charitable causes. He is also programme director for two stations, one of which, Outlaw Country, plays the darker, edgier material shunned by mainstream country radio.
He really is a one of a kind. Check out the doc. You won't be sorry.
Previously:
• The enduring power of Bruce Springsteen's music: a fan's journey
• Michelle Obama joins Bruce Springsteen for 'Glory Days' in Barcelona
• The making of Bruce Springsteen's 'Nebraska' is coming to life in a new movie
Flavor Flav's wild piano playing
Jennifer Sandlin / 7:32 am PT Sun Aug 4, 2024
Flavor Flav (of Public Enemy). Image from Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Public_Enemy_@_Sir_Stewart_Bovell_Park_%282_1_2011%29_%285356672234%29.jpg
Rapper and founding member of revolutionary hip-hop group Public Enemy has once again reminded everyone how incredibly awesome and talented he is. In addition to being a legendary rapper, he's also a generous philanthropist, the infectious official hype man for the USA Women's Water Polo team, and a classically trained pianist who also happens to play over a dozen other instruments.
Flav recently showed off his terrific piano skills at the residence of the U.S. Ambassador to France. When posting the video on his social media, he wrote, "Ya boy gots to play a piano from 1929 for the US Ambassador." In the video, after being told the piano is from 1929, he politely asks, "Can I play something on it?" Then he sits down and whips out a gorgeous tune.
Previously:
• Flavor Flav backing the US Women's Water Polo team
• Flavor Flav's rendition of the National Anthem yesterday was really…. something! (video)
• Watch classically-trained musician Flavor Flav playing the piano
• Flava Flav backing the US Women's Water Polo team
Star Wars back in theaters (in Ojibwe)
Gail Sherman / 6:32 am PT Sun Aug 4, 2024
A New Hope Ojibwe opening crawl
There is a new version of Star Wars, or A New Hope, as the kids call it, but this one isn't a "Greedo shot first" situation. The classic film has been dubbed into Ojibwe. Last year, the Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council and the University of Manitoba partnered with Disney/Lucasfilm to create an official Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe) version of Star Wars: A New Hope. Ojibwe is spoken in Eastern and Southern Canada and its border states. A casting call produced a slate of dedicated native speakers to translate and dub the dialogue.
"The word for hyperdrive in English has two parts, the hyper which is super, super crazy. And then there's the drive part. So we, we basically just broke it down the same way," said Aandeg Muldrew, a translator on the project and the voice of Luke Skywalker.
Bringing those words to life was a different challenge for the voice actors. Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher are silver screen icons with very distinctive interpretations of the characters.
Theresa Eischen, the voice actor for Princess Leia, said she took her lead from the Hollywood stars.
"I recorded each line that Princess Leia said, as Carrie Fisher said them," said Eischen. "And then I would automatically say them in English first to get the sound, the way she sounded. Then I would say them in Anishinaabemowin. And it just came together after that."
This is not the first indigenous language dub of A New Hope. A Navajo dub was added as an extra to Disney+ in 2021, but it has never been seen in theaters. The Ojibwe dub premieres on August 8 at the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg, Manitoba. A limited release to additional area theaters will follow. The trailer is available here.
Previously: The AVENGERS cast has dubbed the film in the Lakota language