Watched the following documentaries:
Stephen Hawking's Into the Universe: The Story of Everything (2010; 3 episodes)
Magic Trip (2011)
Page One: Inside the New York Times (2011)
Notes
- Learned about Ken Kesey
- He wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (did not realize the book narrates from the Indian character...or Kesey came up with the Indian character while high on peyote)
- A self-described "middle-of-the-road" guy (champion wrestler, ventriloquist, charasmatic) who just happened to be an acidhead
- After getting a scholarship to Stanford, he first took LSD as a volunteer subject in the CIA-financed study named Project MKULTRA (!) at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital, where he worked as a night aide
- After his 1964 LSD-fueled cross-country bus trip to the NYC World's Fair, LSD-fueled private parties to review the filmed trip footage morphed into the public Acid Test phenomenon (after the term acid test used by miners to differentiate precious metals from baser metals)
- The 1965-66 Acid Test phenomenon, in turn, according to Wikipedia, were "notable for their influence on the LSD-based counterculture of the San Francisco area and subsequent transition from the beat generation to the hippie movement." (emphasis added)
- The Grateful Dead played their first gig under this name at an Acid Test event, and rose to prominence in close collaboration with this emerging scene
- Lots of footage of On the Road protagonist Neal Cassady's frenetic ramblings as he drove the bus
- Really appreciate New York Times media and culture columnist David Carr...his interpersonal skills blew me away
- To wit: "Just a sec, time out. Before you ever went there, we've had reporters there reporting on genocide after genocide. Just because you put on a fucking safari helmet and looked at some poop doesn't give you the right to insult what we do. So continue, continue...."
- He wrote a book
- Actually, everyone at the NYT came away as particularly professional and impressive...but they do this day-in and day-out...they have to have incredible people skills
- Paul Krugman's take on the NYT movie
- The Stephen Hawking series impressed me...great visuals
- I believe he said one star gets born every fifty years?
- They had a part where apples begin falling around the immobilized Stephen Hawking, and I thought, "They're not going to drop an apple on Stephen MF'ing Hawking's head, are they?" And then a guilty part really wanted to see that happen. But they didn't.
- Stephen Hawking believes in time travel to the future but not the past (paradoxes, lack of time travelers to his private time-traveler party)...and the best ways to do this are spinning around super-massive black holes or approaching the speed of light
- He believes humans will master their genetics, which will allow us to better adapt to interstellar travel (minimize issues with radiation, longer lifespans)
- He thinks aliens, if humans are any clue, may likely arrive looking to exploit the Earth.
Lots of really interesting other bits in these movies; great choices, all around
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