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mor-beck-more-problems · 5 years ago

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What Are Friends For || Morgan & Lydia

After Morgan accidentally strikes a bargain with Lydia, she is invited over to make good on her word. What are friends for, after all?

@inspirationdivine

Morgan was eager to make a better impression on Lydia than she had at the beach. She brought one of the few bottles of wine she hadn’t wrecked in the house, assuming that whatever was good enough for Deirdre’s luxuriant tastes would suit Lydia as well. She put on a bright floral dress that was hanging in the closet from her old things, too attention-seeking with its sweetheart bust and bright pink belt to do for her everyday ‘don’t look at me I’m dead and depressed’ chic. Which meant it was clean and, mostly, unwrinkled. She did her hair. She checked herself, however self-consciously before the door to the rather intimidatingly large house. When Lydia answered the door, Morgan held out her gift bag automatically. “I brought this for you!” If she had any blood flow to her face she would have blushed. No hi? No how are you? Seriously? “It’s good see you,” she tried. “I thought you’d like this. And, um, there’s a rose quartz plate. I don’t know if you like it, but it is one of the nicer things I made.” It was part of an unfinished commission the buyer only wanted a refund for, but even Morgan wasn’t so frazzled as to mention that.

Lydia smiled as she opened the door, humans kept busy upstairs so as to not disturb them. Almost immediately Morgan was pushing a gift bag into her hands, which Lydia peaked into curiously. “Thank you, darling, it’s good to see you too,” she stepped aside, leading Morgan into the kitchen of her home. Large windows filled the room with spring skies, and a view over her garden. “Look at that, you did put on your Sunday best after all. You look good.”

Morgan stepped carefully into the house, minding not to scuff the tile as she walked in. Windows lined every wall that wasn’t adorned with bright paintings or strange sculptures that seemed to draw Morgan towards them. It put her in mind of an art gallery, or a home in a movie: some mysterious billionaire with a shark tank in the basement. “Have you collected all of this in only four months?” She asked, staring wide-eyed around her. So entranced and distracted, she nearly tripped on her way to the kitchen. “I did!” She said, summoning as much brightness as she had in her. Not much, but enough to sound pleasant. “I like to think I clean up good. Your home is amazing,” she said. “Almost like a museum.”

“No, I’ve had much of it for years. Every time I move, I choose my favourite pieces to bring to the new residence. I change it reasonably frequently.” Lydia looked around, smiling at her collection. For each piece, she could name the Leanan who had inspired it. Some of them distant friends or siblings that Lydia could see in the art itself. Either directly, the planes of their chests carefully etched into wood, or in the colour pallettes of the beautiful baroque scenery. “You do clean up well. I also hope this means you feel the slightest bit better relative to the last time we met.”

“Oh. Sh--stars,” Morgan corrected herself quickly. “It really is like a museum. That’s incredible. And when you say years, do you mean--” She hesitated, wondering if it was impolite to ask about age. Morgan didn’t even know what kind of fae Lydia was. If she was a banshee, she would have more skulls, right? And Deirdre wouldn’t be so lonely. She probably wasn’t like Jeff, Morgan would have noticed that too. “Well, just how many, I guess, if that’s polite to ask.” But, in case that wasn’t-- “I am feeling better, though. Thank you for asking. Still not, you know,” she fidgeted on the counter, “Kickin’ that well. But, better than last time. Haven’t almost drowned anyone since.”

“I’m over seventy years old, although I haven’t been collecting art for quite that long,” Lydia replied, preening herself under Morgan’s compliments. “Are you an art connoisseur, or do you just enjoy seeing it?” There wasn’t any judgment in her tone, for once. It was simply a question to find out whether they could talk art, or simply enjoy it together. “I would be more concerned if you were suddenly completely fine. Although, if pranks become part of your new lifestyle, that remains a good choice for a prank. Would you like anything to eat or drink?”

“Seventy?” Morgan balked with surprise before she could stop herself. Did this mean she and Deirdre would look this good at seventy? Her mind struggled to go in five different directions at once. “I don’t know if that’s especially old for fae, if your family treats you like a kid about it or not, but at least you don’t seem cynical or tired after all this time,” she said, trying to get back on course. “I’ve, um, I’ve taken a couple courses in art history. Came in handy when I was alive, a little, with curse research and the sacred geometry that goes into alchemy. But mostly I just think it’s pretty. I um...I mostly have a weak spot for anything with a dramatic enough emotional statement. There’s a chapel Rothko designed, in Houston? I would go there to think some times, as a weird treat for myself.” She scanned their surroundings again. The house was so open she could see all the way to the entrance still. “That one,” she pointed, “Is that an original baroque or something in the style?” She gave a hapless smile, this is as far as my knowledge goes, but I’m trying. “I’ll just have whatever you’re having. Or water,” she said, to be polite. At least water had never really tasted like anything in the first place.

“It doesn’t directly translate to either of those. I have a lot of life left to live, but seventy years is no short length of time for anyone.” Lydia replied, smiling. “Why would I become cynical or tired of it? The world has so much to experience and live for.” She sat on a stool by her kitchen table, as Morgan described her education. “Yes, I know the chapel. It’s incredibly beautiful.” Lydia looked down the hall and nodded. “It’s a Reubens. I do love the Baroque style.” She smiled, letting Morgan go from the discussion. “Water it is,” Lydia acquiesced, pouring Morgan a glass. “Now, shall we discuss that little deal of ours?”

“Oh,” Morgan said, chewing on the thought. “I guess, just because…” Life sucks and then you die. And sometimes you come back for even more hurt. She was able to think better of the statement and after a few moments of mouthing awkwardly in silence, “Humans do. Get cynical and tired. It doesn’t even take seventy years for most of them. I used to get crap for not being more...bitter, cautious, whatever. I was tired a lot, but maybe energy is different for fae.” She didn’t try to flex what little art factoids she had. Lydia was being nice and, fuck it, she’d let her be. Morgan had given her offerings, she made an effort, and despite Lydia’s airs of propriety, there was something about her that invited Morgan to drop her own pretensions and be herself. She gave a smaller, though more sincere smile and nodded gratefully. “Right! I said I’d do something for you. What kind of thing did you have in mind?”

“There are days that are terrible. Sometimes weeks or even years. To let that colour my entire life would be...wasteful.” Lydia replied, but knew it probably wasn’t what Morgan needed to hear right now. Losing another wasn’t the same as losing your own sense of self. Even if Morgan hadn’t lost her life, Lydia understood she currently felt like it. So she smiled, matching Morgan’s. “Yes. This is really… more of a heads up, if you will. I’m sure Deirdre is very careful with these things, with you. But if you’re to date a fae, you need to be aware that not all of us are as sweet as Deirdre or I, and that you might need to watch your words more carefully.” Lydia clasped her hands. “As for what I had in mind. I was thinking a small painting. I can offer you as much inspiration as you like. I don’t care if you paint the whole canvas blue, or if you throw the paint at it, or if you take rests. All of that is up to you. You could even take a knife to the canvas, for all I mind. Just create something, for me. That’s all I ask to end the promise.”

“Wait--what?” Morgan sputtered with confusion. She thought that Lydia was kidding. She had to be. A head’s up? “We’re always intentional with our promises, yeah,” Morgan said, straightening with a little pride. Their promises were better than any cheesy ring or one-time declaration any other couple might make. They were their trust, their fidelity, something that could stay true and real, even when Morgan could barely get out of bed. They never had to pull on the thread because they meant what they said. It only existed for something sudden, some hypothetical emergency or some time when the compulsion would be a comfort. What else would promises be good for, besides a proof of trust? Her expression wrinkled, confused and scrutinizing as she waited for some other punchline. Then her body began to ache, her insides burning and twisting. That was...weird. “Uh…” Her stomach tightened, and Morgan clenched her jaw to keep from dry heaving in front of Lydia. “Oh-kay.” She gripped the countertop to keep from doubling over. Was this--something fae let happen on purpose? “Canvas?” She asked, voice strained. “Can you, um, show me where, a-and paint, crayola crayons, whatever? Please?”

“Already set up,” Lydia replied smoothly, stepping over to help Morgan. “Darling, there’s no rush.” That would at least ease the ache that had Morgan keeling over, her jaw tight. Lydia tried to feel bad about it. She really did. It was the fae in her, that couldn’t stand to avoid taking advantage of such things. Perhaps it was a bit of a compulsion. She would have done it to anyone, really, and would expect it in return. “Come along here, and I’ll bring you something you can really taste.” Lydia lead Morgan to a pre-set up canvas and paints. It was a small canvas, A4 sized. If Morgan wanted to, she could cover the whole thing in a couple minutes flat. “There you go. As I said, darling, no rush, take the rests you want, paint what you like.”

Morgan’s insides unclenched at Lydia’s words. She let out a deep gasp, bracing herself again, just so she didn’t go to the floor in relief. She looked up at Lydia, bewildered by how quickly this had turned around into something...not at all like what she shared with Deirdre. Was this the ‘heads up’? The lesson she was supposed to get out of this. “T-thank you,” she said quietly, averting her gaze. She followed her at a distance, still feeling a little clammy, or maybe just shaken. This wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she asked the universe to help her feel again. She looked between Lydia and the canvas and back again. It was all...waiting for her. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. “Okay. What I like. I can do that.” She tried to smile again, but she was too shaken to feel at ease just yet.

She lifted a drafting pencil and began to sketch out the bones of...whatever this was going to be. Why was this so hard? Of course she liked things. Morgan sectioned off the canvas for a close up landscape and set aside a circle for what she wanted to put in it. She had started on a base coat (she remembered that much from the extra curricular lectures she’d attended) when she worked up the nerve to ask, “So, can I ask--? When you say that other fae are not as sweet, do you mean...that they do this on purpose? For...what, exactly? I just...would like to understand better.”

“I mean that the kind of promise you made could be used for something much crueler than a simple painting.” Lydia sat down a few feet away from Morgan, watching her paint the base. She sat back, her wings fading into view as she considered the question. “We do it in part because it is our culture. To us, there is little more valuable than our word. That everyone else gives it so thoughtlessly is infuriating. There should be consequences for such things.” She turned her gaze back to Morgan. “When I was attacked by that vampire, when I was done being terrified, I was enraged. Not just because he’d turned me into a toy, or because he’d tried to kill me. What made me most angry was that we’d made a deal, and he went right against it. That made me more angry than the manner by which he did it.” Lydia shook her head to clear her mind. “I suppose though, perhaps what I want to warn you of, is that many fae don’t like other fae to date other species at all. That a commitment like the one you made to me could have been used to end the relationship between the two of you.”

Morgan could understand, a little, what it must be like to see everyone take for granted what was so essential to you. She still hadn’t been by to see the coven despite saying that she would, she needed to. It was too painful, too infuriating, to witness magic as if it were a matter of course when her power had died in the street with her heartbeat. She switched to a different brush and began to cover the canvas in blue before taking up another and layering a wide swath of green over it for grass. It was more of a clumsy child’s dreamscape than the spot in the woods by the river she had hoped to represent, but Lydia hadn’t asked her for the artistic value of her work. She paused, turning solemn as Lydia recounted the worst parts of her story to her. Morgan shook her head with dismay. “Vampires are the fucking worst,” she grumbled quietly. Then, with a little more poise she said louder, “He should never have done that. He should have to pay, pay to someone for being cruel in that way. I’m sorry, Lydia.”

At the suggestion that Morgan could be promise-tricked into deserting Deirdre, she put her brush down. “They might hate me, for being with her. I’m aware of that much,” she said solemnly. “But...we promised each other first. All she ever has to do is ask for me to come to her, and I will. Wherever she is, whatever else happens between us. Doesn’t that promise matter too?” They were careful. They still didn’t go shouting from the rooftops that they were together. But if fae could sense each other, it would only take one outing down the wrong street, bumping into the wrong person, for them to guess. “How do I keep that from happening?” She asked. “I didn’t...I was being sincere, Lydia, when I spoke to you about doing something. I just didn’t understand that it was possible to bind yourself without the word ‘promise.’” She picked up her brush again, sighing with dismay as more troubled thoughts floated and circled her brain. “I’m sorry for that too I guess.”

“He will. He made a deal, and now he will pay for it. As he should,” Lydia replied, sneering, before pushing the mysterious vampire out of her mind and out the conversation. Morgan had much more interesting things to say. “You made a promise to Deirdre that you would stay in a relationship with her?” Lydia asked. Deirdre could do Deirdre but… how completely bizarre. She’d have to ask Deirdre about it sometime. “Yes, any such promise has incredible value. There is a separate danger there. When an unstoppable force hits an immovable object, what breaks? Usually, the person who has made two opposing unbreakable promises.” It was rather gruesome, really. It was horrifying. Lydia had seen it happen to a couple humans, but had once seen it happen to a gancanagh she knew, barely eighteen years old. The whole fae population had gone into mourning over it. “You watch your words, carefully. Any time you commit to something, any time you indicate a favour owed. It takes practice. That’s why I wanted you to learn this now.” Lydia leant forward, her eyes softer than the situation should suggest. “I appreciate your apology, darling. I don’t doubt your good nature.”

“Oh, no, that’s--” Morgan couldn’t help but scoff darkly. “That’s definitely not what happened. Not that I would ever fuck with our agency like that in the first place, but Deirdre--” Deirdre had been more livid, more hurt than Morgan had ever seen her before, or since. Everything was vanishing behind one locked door after another. Morgan, with her cursed track record, had feared the worst. All because of some stupid words she hadn’t understood. Morgan couldn’t bring herself to explain the horrible details, the guilt of having caused that kind of hurt still haunted her mind. It rose up, prickling her peace like needles whenever things grew tense between her and Deirdre, and when they were so light and calm, they seemed too good to last. But the unpleasantness of that day in the woods was clear on her face as she stared into the distance before resuming her painting. “She would’ve released me in two seconds if that had been what I was trying. We weren’t in a good place, when I gave her that promise. But I wanted…” What she had really wanted was for all the badness to stop. And for Deirdre to not give up on her own humanity just because Morgan had wounded her by mistake. But Morgan did not know how to tell Lydia any of this, or if she even wanted to.

“I wanted her to know that I would always be there for her,” she said at last. “Even if we never got back to the kind of place we were at before, I would still want to be there for her, if that was something she might...want. Even a little. No relationship conditions, she could have frozen me out for weeks or months, and asked me over for just an hour or a night or a week. When you care about someone enough...when you love them, it shouldn’t matter if you’re in a fight or broken up over some stupid mistake or you haven’t spoken in awhile. If you love them, you want to be there no matter what, as long as they want you to. But that’s hard for people to believe. And not everyone means things like ‘oh, i still wanna be your friend,’ ‘yeah you can still count on me.’ But I meant it. So I gave her a promise. If she ever decided she wanted to see me again, I’d come. She only had to ask for me.”

Morgan began to paint the drop of canvas she’d sectioned off a bright orange. Not at all like the amber fossil kept safely in their bedroom, but close as she could figure from her selections. “We worked things out on our own, eventually. She’s never pulled on that thread, even once. And I’d come without pressing her to take that measure, obviously. But I like knowing it's there. There’s no telling what could happen, and it’s still true, so…” She looked over at Lydia, a little heartened by her softness. She nodded at her words, accepting the gravity of her situation, why she might feel compelled to go to all this trouble. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do here. You must care about Deirdre a lot, to look out for us.”

Lydia listened. This hadn’t been intended to be a backdoor into Deirdre’s private relationship or private thoughts, but as Morgan explained, Lydia began to relax and ease. Not just because she had for a second believed that Deirdre would have accepted such an ethically questionable promise. She listened attentively as Morgan talked, watching the attention by which Morgan painted. She deliberately wasn’t watching the actual painting, willing it to be a surprise, and to ensure that Morgan wouldn’t feel too imposed on. Beyond the literal imposition, of course. “I’m rather relieved to hear that, I must admit. The alternative would have been alarming. For the both of you.” Lydia settled and rolled her shoulders, stretching wing muscles as she did. “It is still a major commitment, but I’m glad you thought it through with her. I’m glad you were there to help her.” She smiled, softly, at Morgan’s comment. “I do. She’s a wonderful woman. Ultimately, I want her to be happy. Everything else is secondary.”

Morgan painted as best she could, which was, honestly, not very well. She began to add what was meant to be a squirrel picking flowers, caught in the lens of the orange drop, but her inexpert strokes morphed the image into a strange brown blob, almost sinister. “You don’t have to worry about that with me. I love her,” she said simply, setting the brush aside. She stepped back from her work. Not an artistic vision by any means, but it was covered. She gave Lydia a sidelong glance, wincing at just how awful it looked next to the art surrounding her. “I, uh, I tried,” she said. “It’s...well, it’s supposed to be things I like, but you should maybe display it out by the dumpster.”

Love. Morgan had used that word twice now, so that it couldn’t be an accident. Deirdre had said many things, but she had said nothing of love. Lydia looked down to her hands for a moment, at the smooth skin and the burgundy nails she wore today. She wondered if she’d be so kind, if Morgan was still human. She wondered if she would have done this at all, if Morgan never had been. Lydia set those thoughts aside. There was an edge to this kindness, that if asked about, Lydia couldn’t deny. One that perhaps they would forget about in time. Morgan turned the easel, and Lydia raised an eyebrow at the monstrosity that Morgan revealed. “I wouldn’t throw it away, this is a gift. We’ll call it… dadaist modern art, and call it a day. I am very grateful, Morgan. For everything.”

Morgan couldn’t help but notice the silence around her declaration. She wondered if it had to do with her being only recently un-human’d. If she had been dead all along, would Lydia believe her more, would she see it more clearly? Or would it only look right to her with a pair of wings at her back and fae blood in her cold veins? She sighed, wrapping her arms around herself to hide the self-consciousness. Lydia was being kind, but it was the sort of kindness that gritted its teeth against something else. She should probably count herself lucky, she reminded herself, that Lydia was trying at all. That she had, in some spare moments, tried to extend whatever counted as friendship for her kind of fae towards Morgan. “I don’t think I’ve done all that much,” she said, side-eyeing her handiwork again. “But I appreciate you taking this time with me too. I’d like to get to be your friend too. At some point.”

“You made more of an effort than I expected. That has value,” Lydia replied softly. She stood up, smoothing her skirt. “I think I’d like that too, at some point,” Lydia replied in turn. Perhaps not today. Perhaps not in a month. Perhaps not while Remmy was made to hate themselves for saving Morgan from her curse. Some point, though. It was an easy, commitment to make. “I also think I’ve taken up more than enough of your time, as pleasant as it has been to get to know you better.” She smiled, looking at the painting one more time. “I am truly happy for you and Deirdre. I’m glad you have each other.” I hope it stays that way. Deirdre didn’t need more heartbreak. As Lydia showed Morgan to the door, she thought that Deirdre wasn’t the only one like that, either.

#wr lydia #wr chatzy #wr lydia chatzy #wr deirdre #what are friends for

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rhondarma082639 · 4 years ago

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quirksofartstuff · 6 years ago

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Searching For The Perfect Mother's Day Gift? Look No Further Than This Handy Quirktacular Guide!

Mom, Mother, Mama-there is not a word we can call the woman that gave us life, took care of us, or took us in that can do justice for what our mothers have done for us. Whether it is a biological mother, adopted mom, grandma, a very special Aunt, a dad that had to act as both, or even a friend that was able to take on that motherly role for you, we all think of someone that means the world to us when we hear that word. Sunday, May 13th (look at that reminder I made sure to include. YOU. ARE. WELCOME!) is the day we in the US celebrate our very special someone, and this year Quirks and The Sideshow have gift ideas to help you find the perfect token of your love, Friends!

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appliances · 3 years ago

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driversourcetx · 3 years ago

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Triple Black Kat • 1989 Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet Final Model-Year 930 Turbo, February 1989 Production Equipped with the Highly Coveted G50 Five-Speed Manual Gearbox 26,500 Original Miles In Exceptionally Preserved Condition - A Time-Warp, Exemplary Example Believed Original Paint, Verified by Paint Meter All Factory Etched Glass Extraordinary, Supple Original Upholstery & Convertible Soft Top Retains Identification Decals/Tags: Doors/Jambs, Bonnet, Luggage Compartment, Engine Bay, Deck Lid & Rear Bumper All original plaques, paint pen markings, tags, cosmoline, coatings and finishes displayed throughout the vehicle Correct Blaupunkt Reno Radio – Option No. 158 New (2021), Period Authentic 205/55R16 & 245/45R16 Pirelli Cinturato P7 N4 Tires 1 of only 600 U.S. 930 Turbo Cabriolets Produced in 1989 Fall 2021 Inspection and Scheduled Service Clean Carfax & AutoCheck History Reports Accompanied by Space Saver Spare Tire, Jack, Recent Records and Accessories Selling NOW, exclusively at auction, through @bringatrailer #oktmotorfest __________________________________ #porsche #porsche911 #911 #classicporsche #g50 #carrera #original #turbo #930 #getoutanddrive #classiccar #driveclassic #drivetastefully #driversource (at Houston, Texas) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVeDT6vFrXX/?utm_medium=tumblr

#oktmotorfest #porsche #porsche911 #911 #classicporsche #g50 #carrera #original #turbo #930 #getoutanddrive #classiccar #driveclassic #drivetastefully #driversource

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autumn2007-blog · 5 years ago

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Love 4 Digital Money Payments Vicki Semke.financial ™Search World You Love Vicki Semke.global™

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The post Love 4 Digital Money Payments Vicki Semke.financial ™Search World You Love Vicki Semke.global™ appeared first on Good Info.

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etchhouston · 3 months ago

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Etch Houston is a full service surface etching company specializing in neon signage, custom glass art & led displays.

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slinginginkcalligraphy · 3 years ago

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JNSQ Wine Bottle Engraving - Houston

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The wine bottle that I engrave in this video is by JNSQ. This bottle is honestly one of the most beautiful bottles that I have seen along with being an engraver’s dream. The shape of the bottle makes it easy to maneuver for engraving. The near flat & wide surface is incredibly close to the same feel that you would experience with engraving on flat glass. There is not much to it. Cheers!

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perksofwifi · 5 years ago

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2014 Chevrolet Corvette Visits Legendary NASA Space Sites – Epic Drives

Ever wanted to drag race a modern Corvette against a classic ’67 427 Big Block side-pipe convertible? We do that and much more in this special Corvette/NASA feature from February 2014��it’s a story you’ll only find on MotorTrend. As NASA marks 50 years since Apollo 11, we’re revisiting this story.

The tourists have no idea who’s walking among them. As the crowds gape at the towering missiles and wedgy capsules on display at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, about an hour east of Orlando, a trim elder statesman in jeans and a polo shirt gazes unnoticed at a gargantuan, 223-foot-long Saturn 1B booster laid out on its side, its tubular white skin blinding in the morning sunshine, huge exposed rocket nozzles silent but seemingly poised to spew flames at any moment. Suddenly, no doubt intrigued by the trio of video and still cameras focusing on the older man, a 20-something tourist in shorts and flip-flops steps forward with a pen and paper.

“Uh, can I have your autograph?” he asks politely.

“Well, sure,” says man in the polo. “What’s your name?”

“Harold.”

The older man signs the paper, passes it back, shakes the tourist’s hand. The kid can’t believe his luck. “I always wanted to meet a real astronaut. Thanks so much, Mr. Collins!” And with that he practically skips away.

The man turns to me, his tanned face etched with time but bearing a tautness that belies his 81 years, and we burst out laughing. No, we haven’t pulled a fast one — the autograph-signer is indeed a bona fide astronaut, one of just 30 selected in the early 1960s to join the glory days of NASA’s moon program. But he isn’t Michael Collins from Apollo 11. He’s Walt Cunningham, who in October 1968 joined commander Wally Schirra and crewmate Don Eisele to fly the crucial first manned Apollo mission, Apollo 7.

“Happens all the time!” Cunningham says with a grin. “Usually they think I’m Scott Carpenter. Or they ask, ‘Did you ever meet Neil Armstrong?'”

We share another good laugh. But make no mistake: I’m just as awed to be in Cunningham’s presence as the confused autograph hound. After all, when I was a boy in the ’60s, NASA kept me busier than Ham the space chimp. I watched every rocket launch and splashdown live on our battered old black-and-white Zenith. I clipped newspaper and Life magazine articles on my NASA heroes. I built models of Gemini capsules and Saturn rockets and lunar modules and dreamed of someday boarding one myself. If you’d have told me then, “Four decades from now, you’re going to spend a week driving across the country with an Apollo astronaut,” I’d have choked on my Pillsbury Space Food Stick and dropped my glass of Tang. “Oh, sure,” I’d have replied. “And I suppose one day I’ll take pictures with my phone.”

Of course, Cunningham hasn’t flown all the way out here from his home in Houston just to wax nostalgic on his old stomping grounds. I lured him with bait. Like most of his rocket-jockey colleagues from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo days, Cunningham has long been a Corvette man. He’s owned several, plus other sports cars including Porsches, a Ferrari 246, and an Acura NSX, and still drives a 2005 C6 — manual transmission, thank you. So when I rang him up and mentioned, “I’ve got a brand-new 2014 C7 ‘Vette…gonna drive it from KSC in Florida to Johnson Space Center in Texas for our online show ‘Epic Drives,'” Walt took all of three seconds before replying, “Hope you like riding in the passenger seat.”

Before we head to the car, Walt and I take the rest of the day to explore KSC. Visiting a NASA site in the company of an Apollo astronaut is like touring the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Mick Jagger. Every locked door opens wide. First we take some time to examine the huge Saturn 1B. The rocket holds a special significance for Walt, as he, Schirra, and Eisele rode one just like it into Earth’s orbit for an 11-day shakedown of the then-untested command module (Apollos 8 through 17 used the even larger Saturn V). “In those days, I just took it for granted,” Walt says as he takes in the 1B’s imposing flanks. “I was gonna fly whatever vehicle was out there. But now I come back and can really appreciate the significance of it. It’s impressive.”

Next we venture over to launch complex 39A, ground zero for Apollo 11 and most of the other moon missions, and many shuttle launches. Apollo 7 actually lifted off from pad 34, but today that complex is off-limits because of a nearby countdown for a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. (Pad 34 was also the site of a devastating 1967 fire that killed Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.) But just being near any pad brings back launch-day memories for Cunningham. “When you got out here and strapped in, you had a pretty good feeling you were actually going to go,” he says. “My whole career as a Marine fighter pilot and years of astronaut training were finally paying off with an actual space launch.”

As we drive away from the pad, we’re hit by an incredible stroke of luck: Running along its huge gravel tracks is one of NASA’s crawler-transporters, the 6-million-pound, diesel-powered, tank-treaded rigs that carried the completed moon rockets to the launchpad. The crawlers rarely leave their parking spaces unless they’re needed for a mission, and even Walt has never seen one in action before. As the beast rolls by at a stately 1 mph, both of us are overwhelmed by sheer mechanized wonder. Given that NASA built only two of the things, there’s a 50 percent chance that this is the one that carried Walt’s Apollo 7 rocket to its pad back in 1968.

The Vertical Assembly Building (VAB) is the largest single-story building in the world. It towers above the surrounding marsh of the Space Center, visible for miles in any direction. Inside, technicians assembled the various rocket stages of the Saturn moonships (and, later, the space shuttles) upright. Even today, when it’s completely empty, it’s a majestic space, breathtaking in scope. It’s said that on particularly humid days, rain clouds form near the ceiling. (The VAB is so immense — 526 feet high, almost 130 million cubic feet of area — that it contains its own micro-climate.) Even during the runup to his flight, though, Walt never spent much time in here. “I was too busy training,” he says. “I trusted the rocket guys to do their thing while I did mine.”

The next morning, we begin a long drive to our next stop, New Orleans. Walt happily takes the wheel of the C7, and right away he’s smitten. “Wow, it’s just so tight, so quiet,” he gushes. “Way more solid than my C6. They’ve improved the cockpit a ton, too. And the power…just fabulous. Even though I’m a die-hard fan of manuals, I like the paddle-shift automatic a lot.” Walt looks over at me and smiles. “You know, I may just have to get one of these.”

For NASA devotees, New Orleans means more than scrumptious powder-sugared beignets and the uninhibited diversions of Bourbon Street. The city is also home to the Michoud Assembly Facility, where in the 1960s and early ’70s technicians crafted the enormous first stages of the Saturn 1B and Saturn V boosters. Thanks to a friend who owns a boat, Walt and I zip across Lake Pontchartrain to visit the back entrance of Michoud. “This is where they’d load the rocket stages onto barges to be shipped via inland waterways to Cocoa Beach,” Walt says.

I rise early the next day and slip off via Corvette to visit Michoud’s front gate. There, in all its gravity-defying glory, lies an original Saturn V first stage — a piece originally intended for the Apollo 20 moon mission, which was later canceled. The years have done nothing to diminish the majesty of this machine, the main stage of the most powerful rocket ever successfully deployed. With the whistling wind the only sound, the nearby C7 ‘Vette almost seems to whisper to the aging Saturn: “C’mon, guy. We’re Americans. We can still do this.”

Johnson Space Center in Houston lies 350 miles west of New Orleans, but before Walt and I turn into the home of Mission Control, we detour to visit my Texas friends Bruce Shuman and Danny Reed, each of whom owns vintage ‘Vettes to die for. Danny drives the ultimate prize: the so-called “AstroVette,” a ’69 427 coupe once owned by Apollo 12 lunar module pilot Alan Bean, the fourth human to walk on the moon. All three Apollo 12 crewmembers — including commander Pete Conrad and command-module pilot Dick Gordon — had matching ‘Vettes painted in black over gold. Reed found this one all but abandoned on a GM auction lot in 1971, and has owned it ever since. Today, it’s the only one of the Apollo 12 AstroVettes that remains. It’s probably worth, oh, north of $2 million.

Schuman’s collection would be the envy of any Corvette buff. Among his cherry toys: a ’61 283 convertible, a ’63 split-window coupe, and “The Beast” — a ’67 427 Big Block side pipe convertible rated at 435 hp but probably making well over 500. “Hey, Bruce,” I say. “I’ve booked some runway time tomorrow at Ellington Air Force Base. How’d you like to drag race your Big Block against my C7?”

Bruce is all over the idea. “I think that could be arranged!”

The next morning, on a closed 8000-foot runway at Ellington, I line up my C7 against the rip-snorting ’67 Big Block. At the wheel of the vintage Chevy is the only man Bruce trusts with his cars: Ray Repczynski, perhaps the finest Corvette wrench in the country. Our walkie-talkies crackle with the famous “3…2…1…Liftoff!” and away we go. But it’s no contest. Ray may be an expert driver with more than 500 horses under his right foot, but he’s got skinny ’60s-era tires, a tricky clutch, and a suspension that wanders all over the grooved pavement. The C7, in contrast, is simply effortless: Just mash the pedal, flick the paddle shifters, and I’m gone in a cloud of tire smoke and a flash of screaming yellow paint. The 2014 ‘Vette wins by a mile.

Our day at Ellington offers one additional perk: I get a chance to take Walt’s lovely wife, Dot, for a quick blast in the C7. In seconds, we’re hurtling down the runway at 158 mph — and Dot is all smiles and giggles. “So, do you think Walt should buy one of these?” I ask.

“Are you kidding?” Dot says with a laugh. “This car is great! I want him to buy one!” (Hear that, Walt? You owe me!) The sights within Johnson Space Center will leave the most jaded tech geek awestruck. Inside the huge Building 9, for instance, lie full-size mockups of the International Space Station, the Orion capsule (a planned follow-up to Apollo), various experimental robots, and a space shuttle systems trainer. “In my day, the command module was considered pretty complicated,” Walt says as he pores over the dizzying array of buttons and controls on the shuttle flight deck. “We had 1800 switches we had to know how to control — seemed like a lot. But you can see that this is much bigger!”

About 20 minutes outside of JSC is the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, a 6.2-million-gallon swimming pool that houses actual-size pieces of the International Space Station. With its lake-size tank, giant video displays, and cool spaceship mockups, the place looks like a set for a James Bond flick. By working underwater, astronauts in full space suits can simulate the weightlessness of space — invaluable training for the extra-vehicular activities (space walks) common for ISS astronauts. “Of course, in my day we didn’t have anything like this,” Walt says. “We did a little scuba in a hotel swimming pool!”

For sheer historical significance, nothing tops the beating heart of JSC: the original Mission Control Center. It was in this drab, theater-like room, with its banks of green desk monitors, cheerless government carpet, and no outside windows, that some of the grandest moments in the history of American exploration played out. When Neil Armstrong radioed, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed,” his voice reached this desk, where CapCom Charlie Duke responded, “We copy you down, Eagle.”

When Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell radioed his calm but urgent, “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” it was flight director Gene Kranz, sitting right here, who stirred his team into action to save the crew. I swear I can smell the stale coffee, the cigarettes, the sweat still hanging in the air, the room now a National Historic Landmark. Walt and I are rendered silent just being in this hallowed chamber. I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve got tears in my eyes.

Later that afternoon, Walt bids farewell to the Corvette, but not before rendering his verdict. “Honestly, I can’t think of a single negative thing to say about the C7. It’s kinda like my life: We’ve both evolved over the years.”

Before Walt heads for home, we stop off at an indoor display housing a restored, original Saturn V rocket — all 363 horizontal feet of it. Along one wall are pictures and bios of all of the crews of Apollo — most of them friends of Walt’s, many of them now gone, including both of his Apollo 7 crewmates. Walt surveys the pictures in silence, his mind no doubt flooding with memories of those heady days of the space race, when it seemed as if nothing was impossible in the United States — at least not for these can-do NASA rock stars.

You could forgive a man in Walt’s position — one of a mere handful of Americans to fly on mankind’s greatest-ever adventure — to be a little full of himself, perhaps even downright arrogant and entitled. But that’s not Walt. Not at all. As he gazes at the pictures of his own Apollo 7 crew, suddenly he stops, turns to me. “You know what strikes me most being in here with this rocket, looking at these old photographs of all of us?” he says. “How lucky we all were. How lucky to have the right skills in the right place at exactly the right time in history. I still pinch myself that I got to fly in space.” He smiles. “Not too bad for a former Marine from Iowa!”

My Other Car Is a Lunar Rover

It’s easy to see how the Corvette came to be the car of choice for NASA’s astronauts. Space enthusiast and Melbourne, Florida, Chevy dealer Jim Rathmann (a former Indy 500 winner) knew putting the astronauts behind the wheel of the brand’s cars would make for priceless publicity in the space-crazed ’60s, so he easily convinced GM senior executive Ed Cole to arrange special $1-a-year leases for his new rocket buddies. Of the first group of astronauts, the “Original Seven,” six opted for Corvettes; only John Glenn chose a more practical station wagon. (The first American in space, Alan Shepard, had owned his own ’57 as a test pilot and, after his 1961 spaceflight, was given a new ’62 by Cole. He owned 10 ’Vettes in his lifetime.) Walt Cunningham snapped up several ’Vettes during his astronaut career, as did the “AstroVette”-owning Apollo 12 crew. The Apollo 15 team — commander Dave Scott, Al Worden, and Jim Irwin — had a trio of Corvettes in red, white, and blue with American-flag-inspired racing stripes. A 1971 photo shows them posing with their cars behind a mockup of the vehicle they planned to drive on the moon — also built by GM. You could almost imagine the bumper stickers on their in-your-face ’Vettes: “My Other Car Is a Lunar Rover.” Lucky bastards.

Flight of the Phoenix

Within 15 seconds on January 27, 1967, the U.S. space program changed forever. An exposed wire sparked in the pure-oxygen environment of the Apollo 1 command module, at the time undergoing a routine “plugs out” test on the launchpad. In seconds, fire swept through the cabin. The crew tried desperately to open the complicated hatch—which in the best of conditions required 90 seconds to unlock, including assistance from the outside. Seconds later, all three — commander Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee — were asphyxiated. With them nearly died the entire Apollo moon shot.

Yet the deaths of the Apollo 1 crew may have saved the program, and certainly contributed to NASA successfully meeting President John F. Kennedy’s pledge of ��landing a man on the moon before this decade is out.” NASA aggressively examined every detail of the charred Apollo 1 capsule. Astronauts and contractors worked tirelessly to correct its myriad faults and design flaws, and by October 1968, a completely redesigned Block II command module was ready to fly.

Walt Cunningham, along with commander Wally Schirra and Don Eisele, was assigned to fly this crucial new first flight of Apollo. And their mission, 11 days in Earth orbit, was an unqualified success. In fact, it was almost too perfect. Commander Schirra, suffering from a bad head cold and determined not to let “annoying” scientific experiments get in the way of a flawless test flight, all but committed mutiny — he flat refused numerous requests from Mission Control to perform anything but the most essential of flight-related tasks. The experienced Schirra was retiring from NASA after the flight anyway, but his actions all but doomed the future careers of rookies Eisele and Cunningham. Neither flew again.

In his superb memoir, “The All-American Boys,” Walt is kind to Schirra, implying that his commander made tough but correct calls. But when I ask Walt, “Schirra kind of screwed you guys, didn’t he?” Walt gently smiles and nods his head.

“In retrospect, I was too forgiving of him. I probably would’ve flown on SkyLab, but the guys upstairs still had a bad taste in their mouths from Apollo 7. That said, I do understand where Wally was coming from. After the Apollo 1 fire, he just wanted Apollo 7 to be perfect. All things considered, I was happy to be a part of that.”

Signed copies of Walt’s book, “The All-American Boys,” are available at www.waltercunningham.com

2014 Chevrolet Corvette C7 BASE PRICE $51,995 VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, RWD, 2-pass, 2-door hatchback ENGINE 6.2L/455-460-hp/460-465-lb-ft OHV 16-valve V-8 TRANSMISSION 6-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT 3400 lb (est) WHEELBASE 106.7 in LENGTH X WIDTH X HEIGHT 176.9 x 73.9 x 48.6 in 0-60 MPH 4.0 sec (MT est) EPA CITY/HWY FUEL ECON 16/28 mpg ENERGY CONS, CITY/HWY 211/120 kW-hrs/100 mi CO2 EMISSIONS 0.98 lb/mi ON SALE IN U.S. Currently

The post 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Visits Legendary NASA Space Sites – Epic Drives appeared first on MotorTrend.

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junker-town · 5 years ago

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Good luck scoring on Kawhi Leonard and Paul George

We haven’t seen a wing combination that can put the clamps on defenses like this in a long, long time.

With Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, the Los Angeles Clippers have added two of the NBA’s seven best players, a pair of perennial MVP candidates who are smack dab in the middle of their primes with more room to improve. They directly and indirectly complement each other in obvious ways, and after spending most of their careers in winning situations alongside fellow megastars, they have a natural synergy that’s born from being familiar with sacrifice and accepting it.

Both possess skill-sets designed to be lead dogs on their own teams – each finished in the 97th percentile in usage percentage last season, per Cleaning the Glass – but it’s not hard to see how they peacefully coexist. They aren’t known as playmakers, but both can comfortably navigate through any possession, on or off the ball, in ways that force a defense to account for every step. When they share the court, they’ll loosen the floor for each other by keeping the other team off balanced. When they instead star as the solo act alongside a crew of sensible role players, they should have a fun time mowing through bench units with an assurance that whenever they need to rest, a proven system can step in to remove pressure from their shoulders. Los Angeles’s offense is in terrific hands.

But it’s the other side of the ball where the Clippers can flex in ways that not only separate them from every other team in the league, but arguably every other team of the last 20 years. We haven’t seen a defensive duo this potent since Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen turned basketball courts into lonely, vulnerable prairies.

When healthy and unbothered by the responsibilities that come with life as any franchises’s only star, George and Leonard are the two most imposing perimeter defenders in basketball. Leonard has won two Defensive Player of the Year awards and has made an all-defensive team every year aside from his rookie year and 2017-18, when he missed all but nine games with a quad injury. George has made All-Defensive team four times and led the league in steals last season. Each approaches that end with nuanced, game-changing force, and a level of confidence that’s impossible for others to duplicate without tumbling into reckless behavior. When they reach, they also teach.

Both have become irrepressible offensive fireworks, but they initially forged their identities with defense as their DNA. Leonard and George etched names for themselves by snuffing out the opponent’s best scorer, knowing they weren’t drafted in a slot high enough to demand 20 shots a night. Both guarded prime LeBron James in the playoffs early in their years without crumbling. They’re versatile and long and smooth, sure, but also committed. It’s not easy to screen either one off their initial assignment, and they impact the other team’s approach no matter where they stand on the floor.

Great offensive players have gravity, meaning they attract attention whether they have the ball or not, as if they’re a bright light drawing in a floating moth. But Leonard and George have an inverse “anti-gravity” effect on the other end. Instead of attracting players from the other team to their geographic location, their mere presence is a natural repellent.

Swing the ball towards either one at your own risk. Use their man to set a ball screen, and pray they don’t spring out and trap the handler 30 feet from the rim — or, even worse, switch onto the play’s initiator and muzzle things another way. Both have spent a majority of their careers forcing offenses to rearrange their entire game plan, making them venture outside their comfort zone before a set is even called. As one coach told Sports Illustrated’s (and now Clippers executive) Lee Jenkins about Leonard back in 2016: “You go at him, you’re asking for trouble.”

A great defense can be built around either one, so to have both at the same time isn’t fair. Factor in point guard Patrick Beverley and new forward Maurice Harkless as ideal complements, and the Clippers have a defensive unit that’s imposing enough to strip most teams of their offensive identity. If your momentum is generated by stars who draw help and then find the open man, what happens against a team that doesn’t need to help?

Consider the Clippers’ potential playoff opponents. How will the Houston Rockets handle the George/Leonard duo if one guards Harden, Beverley sticks Chris Paul, and the other member of the George/Leonard duo sticks to Clint Capela to switch Houston’s pick-and-roll and vaporize the play? Houston can hunt for lesser defenders and/or develop a system that involves more player and ball movement, but in crunch time of a tenacious playoff game, they may lean on the isolation-heavy style they know. Problem is, what they know plays right into L.A.’s hands.

Then consider the Portland Trail Blazers or Utah Jazz. Damian Lillard, C.J. McCollum, Donovan Mitchell, and Mike Conley will all be forced to attack a defense that sees virtually no drop from its best and second-best defender. Can the Denver Nuggets bully them down low with Nikola Jokic, or will it not matter if/when Jamal Murray gets erased from the equation? What can the new-look Lakers do?

The Clippers’ personnel opens up so many different options. They can be uber-aggressive (which is how the Oklahoma City Thunder unleashed George last season, with shades of LeBron’s Miami Heat), or be more conservative and let the action come to them. George and Leonard are deadly on the ball, but in certain matchups, the Clippers can also mess around by throwing one onto a non-threat, then turn him loose in passing lanes as a roving security guard. Safe plays will sit below a flashing yellow light: proceed with caution. George and Leonard will throw off timing and make offenses either think a beat too long or act a split-second too slow. Hesitate or rush, either way you’re toast.

Health definitely matters, with George coming off shoulder surgery (no small matter for a defender who fights over dozens of ball screens every night) and Leonard limping his way through a historic Finals run, during which his defense toggled between brilliant (against the Milwaukee Bucks as Giannis Antetokounmpo’s primary defender) and lackadaisical (he wasn’t himself on that end through most of the Finals). The rest of the roster has questions, particularly in the rim protection department, where Ivika Zubac and Montrezl Harrell are the only big men right now. Should the Clippers match up against the Milwaukee Bucks or Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA Finals – or the crosstown rival Los Angeles Lakers, who now boast Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins — size will matter.

But there should be plenty of opportunity to add more between now and when the buyout market opens up in the middle of the season. This is a team that had a bottom-third defense for the last two seasons, and was forced to stick Beverley on Kevin Durant with their season on the line in this year’s playoffs.

Things are different now. Leonard and George are the backbone of a title contender that can do things nobody else can. And on paper, that arguably makes them the team to beat.

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plusorminuscongress · 6 years ago

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National Recording Registry: Countdown to this year’s inductees

National Recording Registry: Countdown to this year’s inductees By Neely Tucker Published March 19, 2019 at 10:00AM

This is a guest post by Amanda Jenkins, a librarian in residence in the Library’s Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. It was first published on the Now See Hear! blog last week. We’re republishing a slightly edited version, as we’re counting down until the newest 25 additions to the Library’s National Recording Registry are announced tomorrow, March 20.

The National Recording Registry is well-known for its selections of music of all genres, but many historic radio and spoken word recordings also have been inducted. The Registry ensures that “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” recordings are preserved for future generations, and that includes speeches, field recordings, comedy albums, early attempts at recording sound, oral histories, literary readings and…whales.

In this post, we’re celebrating some of the fascinating non-musical titles in the Registry.

A NASA portrait of Neil Armstrong from the Library’s Prints & Photographs Division.

Apollo 11 Astronaut Neil Armstrong Broadcast from the Moon (July 21, 1969) – inducted in 2004.

Neil Armstrong’s 1969 moonwalk, in which he was joined by fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin, lasted two hours and 13 minutes. They collected soil samples, took photos and hoisted an American flag. Throughout their excursion, the astronauts maintained a steady radio conversation between themselves and Mission Control in Houston, Texas. From that conversation comes some of the most famous words in human history— “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Read an essay by Cary O’Dell of the National Recording Preservation Board (and regular Now See Hear! blogger) about the broadcast.

A transcript of the transmission, with audio and video clips, can be found on NASA’s website.

“2000 Years with Carl Reiner & Mel Brooks” (1961) – inducted in 2008

The secret to living 2000 years? “Never touch fried foods!” In their party routine first performed for friends, Mel Brooks played a 2000-year-old man, while Carl Reiner interviewed him. After much convincing, the two writers for Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows,” recorded their ad-libbed dialogue for a 1961 album. Interview subjects ranged from marriage (“I was married over 200 times!”) to children (“I have over 1500 children and not one of them ever comes to visit!”) and to transportation (“What was the means of transportation? Fear!”).

Listen to a Studio 360 feature on this comedy recording.

Phonautograms, Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville (ca. 1853-1861) – inducted in 2010

In late 1853 or early 1854, Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville captured the first recorded sounds by etching onto blackened glass plates the movements of a boar’s-bristle stylus, vibrating in sympathy with a guitar and a human voice. Later, Scott made recordings on paper wrapped around a drum. The resulting “phonautograms” proved crucial to the development of recorded sound. Scott was interested solely in the visible tracings of sound waves in order to study acoustics and did not record with the intention of playing back or listening to his recordings. Nevertheless, in 2008, researchers from the First Sounds group, using contemporary audio technology (developed with the support of several institutions, including the Library of Congress and the National Recording Preservation Board) were able to play back Scott’s recordings for the very first time.

Listen to the phonautograms on the First Sounds website.

Cylinder Recordings of Ishi (1911–14) – inducted in 2010

Recorded on 148 wax cylinders between September 1911 and April 1914, these recordings represent the largest audio collection of the extinct Yahi language. Ishi, the last surviving member of the Northern California Yahi tribe and the last speaker of its language, sings traditional Yahi songs and tells stories, including the story of “Wood Duck” recorded on 51 cylinders. The complete recordings, totaling 5 hours and 41 minutes, were made by anthropologists Alfred Kroeber and T.T. Waterman during Ishi’s five-year residency at the University of California Museum of Anthropology in San Francisco (now the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, UC Berkeley). The cylinders are held at the Hearst Museum in Berkeley.

Read an essay by Cary O’Dell for a more detailed account of these recordings.

“All Things Considered,” first broadcast (May 3, 1971) – inducted in 2016

The National Public Radio flagship news program “All Things Considered” launched on May 3, 1971, one month after the network itself began broadcasting. With an emphasis on “interpretation, investigative reporting on public affairs, the world of ideas and the arts,” in the words of programming head Bill Siemering, “All Things Considered” aimed to give voice to diverse segments of American society in a relaxed, conversational mode. The first broadcast, however, featuring recorded excerpts from a huge antiwar protest in the nation’s capital that took place the same day, was “raw, visceral, and took listeners to the heart of America’s agonies over the war in Vietnam,” remembered Susan Stamberg, an NPR staffer at the time, who became a co-host of the show the following year. While the inaugural program was broadcast to approximately 90 stations across the nation, reaching only a few hundred thousand listeners, “All Things Considered” has since become, according to NPR, “the most listened-to afternoon drive-time news radio program in the country.”

“The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest,” Reverend C. L. Franklin (1953) – inducted in 2010

Long before his daughter Aretha attained stardom in the 1960s, Rev. C.L. Franklin (1915-1984) was a recording star in his own right, with dozens of his riveting sermons reaching an audience well beyond his New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan. African-American entrepreneur Joe Von Battle, whose record shop was only a few blocks from Franklin’s church, recorded Franklin’s sermon “The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest” and released it on three 78-rpm discs on his JVB label in 1953. In the sermon, Franklin draws his text from the Book of Deuteronomy and expounds on the parallels between “God and the eagle.” He builds to a thunderously emotional climax before his very enthusiastic and vocal congregation. Franklin’s many vocal devices inspired not only other preachers, but also gospel and rhythm-and-blues artists who appropriated many of his techniques. Franklin was a national figure in the African-American community from the 1950s on and a close friend and ally of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Songs of the Humpback Whale” (1970) – inducted in 2010

The use of underwater microphones, called hydrophones, showed that not only can whales communicate, but they do so with beauty and complexity. Frank Watlington and Roger Payne, among others, made these unique recordings. The haunting sounds on “Songs of the Humpback Whale,” along with Payne’s liner notes for CRM Records, helped turn the tide of U.S. public opinion against whaling. In addition to the album’s aesthetic and political significance, it can also be considered historically valuable: whales change their songs over time so these recordings document a cetacean performance practice of a time gone by.

“Murmurs of the Earth,” disc prepared for the Voyager spacecraft (1977) – inducted in 2007

This disc was prepared to introduce our planet aurally to any alien intelligence that might encounter the Voyager spacecraft many millions of years in the future. The disc contains encoded photographs, spoken messages, music and sounds as well as greetings delivered in 55 languages. The sound essay includes life sounds (EEGs and EKGs of the human brain and heart), birds, elephants, whales, volcanoes, rain and a baby. The 90 minutes of music features selections ranging from ragas to Navajo Indian chants, Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, a Peruvian Woman’s Wedding song, and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”

Learn more about the “Golden Record” and listen to excerpts on NASA’s website.

Due to copyrights, many Registry titles are not available for listening online. Early musical recordings are available in the National Jukebox, including a few Registry titles; interviews conducted in the 1980s by recording industry giant Joe Smith for his 1988 book, Off the Record: An Oral History of Popular Music, feature dozens of the musicians behind Registry titles; and many musical titles are discussed in an NPR series as well as a Studio 360 series on the Registry. Many of the non-music Registry titles can be listened to in the Recorded Sound Research Center.

A full list of the recordings in the Registry with descriptions and links to essays, podcasts, and ways to listen is available here. Have suggestions for further additions to the Registry? Take a look at the list of titles already in the Registry, and nominate a recording here.