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August 6th, and fictionalized history
Aug. 6th, 2014 11:09 am I am starting with a quotation from Noam Chomsky, but this is mostly a TV review
"If some extraterrestrial species were compiling a history of Homo sapiens, they might well break their calendar into two eras: BNW (before nuclear weapons) and NWE (the nuclear weapons era)."
I don't know what kind of commemoration will happen next year for the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, but this year, possibly not coincidentally, a new TV series on the WGN called "Manhattan" began last week - about the project, not the borough. Specifically, it's a fictionalized view of the Los Alamos workers and their interpersonal relations. Oppenheimer turned up briefly, but as far as I can tell, the other characters are all fictional (unlike the film "Infinity," based on some of Feynman's memoirs, which had only real people, or "Fat Man and Little Boy" which had a mix of historical characters and fictional or name-changed characters). I suspect this is because much of the drama comes from the fact that the physicists could not tell their family members exactly what was going on, with the resulting marriage stresses. I'm sure it's easier to make up dialogue from scratch that nobody will dispute instead of going the docu-drama route. I like it, mostly, but was pulled abruptly from the time period by a character who was wearing pink foam curlers in her hair. Those curlers are still available:
and were certainly common in the 1960s (I even owned some), but I don't think they existed in the early 1940s. It's surprisingly hard to track down their origin, though.
"If some extraterrestrial species were compiling a history of Homo sapiens, they might well break their calendar into two eras: BNW (before nuclear weapons) and NWE (the nuclear weapons era)."
I don't know what kind of commemoration will happen next year for the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, but this year, possibly not coincidentally, a new TV series on the WGN called "Manhattan" began last week - about the project, not the borough. Specifically, it's a fictionalized view of the Los Alamos workers and their interpersonal relations. Oppenheimer turned up briefly, but as far as I can tell, the other characters are all fictional (unlike the film "Infinity," based on some of Feynman's memoirs, which had only real people, or "Fat Man and Little Boy" which had a mix of historical characters and fictional or name-changed characters). I suspect this is because much of the drama comes from the fact that the physicists could not tell their family members exactly what was going on, with the resulting marriage stresses. I'm sure it's easier to make up dialogue from scratch that nobody will dispute instead of going the docu-drama route. I like it, mostly, but was pulled abruptly from the time period by a character who was wearing pink foam curlers in her hair. Those curlers are still available:
and were certainly common in the 1960s (I even owned some), but I don't think they existed in the early 1940s. It's surprisingly hard to track down their origin, though.
