True Time Travel Tales: Sep 04 - Reading "The Exorcist"

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Sep 04 - Reading "The Exorcist"

Monday, September 4, 1972 - Page 248
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

LABORE DAY

10:00 PM
Got up around noon when Dad came over with my dictionary (The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, College Edition, that I got on Christmas, '69), Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition, and the "#1 Bestseller, shocker of the year" The Exorcist, by William Peter Blatty (LARRY IN CHIC SAID I SHOULD READ IT). I'm on page 50 of it now.

1971 First Edition cover

Today was hot & humid. I did a bit more organization of general garbage in my room. The ants are gone, except for an occasional errant mote who gets squashed, having failed to heed my warnings. Yesterday, I put the big TV set from the Sarason's, and the pool table in the cabaña, so now the place is packed inside, tidy outside. Something seems to be lacking in this entry -- I was about to end it, but instead I'll find something thoughtful --- ooh, a good song on the gradio. Chicago, "Saturday, In The Park." First heard it at the Latkas.

From the MTV Archives on YouTube

A lot of good songs came out then. Brings back memories. I should travel more. Enough of that, pardon me whilst I find something thoughtful...

'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and Thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

TOMORROW: An ambitious exercise routine

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TWILIGHT OF THE DAWN...

We look back through countless millions of years and see the great will to live struggling out of the intertidal slime...

We see it turn upon itself in rage and hunger and reshape itself anew; we watch it draw nearer and more akin to us, expanding, elaborating itself, pursuing its relentless inconceivable purpose, until at last it reaches us and its being beats through our brains and arteries...

It is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a beginning, and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn...

A day will come when beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool and shall laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars.

H.G. Wells

1902

THE YEAR: Part 1 - THE WONDERFULLY WACKY WORLD OF 1972

Leap Year 1972 was the longest calendar year ever recorded, so far...

Jan 04 - The 1st scientific hand-held calculator, the HP-35, is introduced for $395.

Jan 05 - President Nixon orders development of a space shuttle program.

Jan 07 - By telephone, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes denounces Clifford Irving's "biography" of him.

Jan 20 - President of Pakistan announces beginning of a nuclear weapons program.

Jan 24 - A Japanese soldier from WWII is discovered in Guam after hiding in the jungle for 28 years.

Jan 25 - Shirley Chisholm, 1st Black Congresswoman, announces candidacy for President.

Jan 30 - Bloody Sunday: The British Army kills 14 unarmed civil rights marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland.

Feb 02 - The last draft lottery is held, a big event in the wind-down of unpopular military conscription during the Vietnam era.

Feb 03 thru 13 - 1972 Winter Olympics held in Sapporo, Japan.

Feb 04 - Mariner 9 orbits Mars, sending photos to Earth.

Feb 05 - US airlines begin mandatory inspection of passengers and baggage.

Feb 21 - Luna 20, an unmanned Soviet spacecraft, lands on the Moon.

Feb 21 thru 28 - Nixon visits the People's Republic of China ending 25 years of separation between the PRC and US.

Feb 26 - Luna 20 returns to Earth with 55 grams of lunar soil.

Mar 02 - Pioneer 10 spacecraft is launched from Cape Kennedy, to be the first man-made satellite to leave the solar system.

Mar 13 - Clifford Irving admits that he had fabricated Howard Hughes' "autobiography."

Mar 22 - The US Congress votes to send women's Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification.

Mar 24 - The Godfather is released in the US.

Apr 10 - At the 44th Annual Academy Awards, Best Picture goes to The French Connection.

Apr 16 - Apollo 16 is launched, arriving at the Moon on April 21 for an 11-day visit.

Apr 17 - The first Boston Marathon in which women are allowed to compete.

May 02 - J. Edgar Hoover, demented Director of the FBI, dies at age 77.

May 15 - Governor George Wallace of Alabama is shot by Arthur Bremer at a Laurel, Maryland political rally.

May 24 - Dawn of the video game age: Magnavox Odyssey system is first demonstrated, going on sale in August.

May 26 - 1st Watergate break-in.

May 27 - 2nd Watergate break-in attempt fails.

Jun 09 - Black Hills flood kills 238 in South Dakota.

Jun 14 thru 23 - Hurricane Agnes kills 117 on the US East Coast.

Jun 17 - Watergate: 5 White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing offices of the Democratic National Committee.

Jun 26 - Atari co-founded by Nolan Bushnell & Ted Dabney.

Jun 28 - Nixon announces that no new draftees will be sent to Vietnam.

Jun 30 - The International Time Bureau adds the first leap second (23:59:60) to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) at the end of the month.

THE YEAR: Part 2 - THE WONDERFULLY WACKY WORLD OF 1972

Jul 10 thru 14 - The Democratic National Convention meets in Miami Beach, nominating South Dakota Senator George McGovern for President.

Jul 17 - GRADY'S 18th BIRTHDAY; McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle makes 1st flight.

Jul 21 - Comedian George Carlin is arrested by Milwaukee police for public obscenity after reciting his "7 Words You Can Never Say On Television" at Summerfest.

Jul 23 - US launches Landsat 1, 1st Earth-resources satellite.

Jul 25 - US health officials admit that Black Americans were used as guinea pigs in the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.

Aug 01 - Democratic vice-presidential nominee Senator Thomas Eagleton withdraws from the race after revealing he was once treated for mental illness.

Aug 04 - One of the largest solar flares ever recorded knocks out cable lines in the US. It begins with the appearance of sunspots on Aug 2; an Aug 4 flare kicks off high activity until Aug 10.

Aug 12 - The last US ground troops are withdrawn from Vietnam.

Aug 21 - The Republican National Convention in Miami Beach renominates President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew for a second term.

Aug 26 thru Sep 11 - 1972 Summer Olympics are held in Munich, West Germany.

Sep 01 - Bobby Fischer defeats Boris Spassky in a chess match in Iceland, becoming the 1st American world chess champion.

Sep 05 thru 06 - Munich Massacre: 11 Israeli athletes at the1972 Summer Olympics are murdered after 8 members of the Arab terrorist group Black September invade the Olympic Village.

Sep 21 - Philippine president Marcos issues Proclamation No. 1081 placing the entire country under martial law.

Oct 08 - Statesman Sargent Shriver is chosen to replace Thomas Eagleton as the US vice-presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.

Oct 13 - A Uruguayan Air Force passenger plane transporting a rugby team crashes at 14,000' in the Andes mountain range. 16 survivors are found alive on December 20, but they have had to resort to cannibalism to survive.

Oct 25 - The first female FBI agents are hired.

Oct 30 - A commuter train collision in Chicago kills 45, injures hundreds.

Nov 05 - A group of Native American activists occupies the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Nov 07 - US presidential election: Republican incumbent Richard Nixon defeats Democratic Senator George McGovern in a landslide.

Nov 14 - Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1,000 (1,003.16) for the 1st time.

Nov 29 - Atari kicks off the 1st generation of video games with the release of their arcade version of Pong, resulting in great commercial success.

Dec 07 - Apollo 17 is launched.

Dec 11 - Apollo 17 lands on the Moon.

Dec 14 - Eugene Cernan is the last person to walk on the moon after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the 3rd and final extra-vehicular activity (EVA) of Apollo 17. This is the last manned mission to the moon of the 20th Century.

Dec 19 - Apollo 17 returns to Earth, concluding this historic program of lunar exploration.

Dec 25 - The Christmas bombing of North Vietnam prompts widespread criticism of President Nixon.

Dec 31 - An extra leap second (23:59:60) is added to end the year, and the US ban on the pesticide DDT takes effect.