Erik Villard (@erikthehistorian.bsky.social)
@Erikhistorian
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Digital Military Historian and Vietnam War historian for the US Army. Amazing wife, 3 dogs & 3 cats, soccer player, EDM fanatic, video gamer, Liverpool fan :)
Washington, DC
Joined November 2011
Just found out that @SnoopDogg dad, Vernell Varnado, served in the Vietnam War with Batt B, 4th Bn, 60th Arty, in the II Corps region in 1969. His unit used M42 self propelled twin 40-mm. cannon vehicles which you can see from this pic of his dad. As an Army historian- respect.
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Watching the original Blade Runner on a 85” 4K HDR tv with a 7.2 surround audio system in Dolby Vision and in Dolby Atmos. oh my god. Unbelievable. Better than anything less than a high end IMAX theater.
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Alas, he continues. "But it's easy come/and it's easy go/all this talking/is only bravado." Can we hold onto true love, which is a mixture of change and permanence? Some existential philosophy to ponder. At any rate, enjoy the music too. :].
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"I know now/love was so exciting." Past and present, again in tension. He has the knowledge now, but he refers to the excitement of love in the past tense. What happened? What changed? Can young love be recaptured? He says "Do I love you/yes I love you." Maybe?.
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Right before the chorus, we get "And hey/there's a red car in the fountain." Taken literally, it's an arresting visual image, hinting at some kind of youthful hijinks. But it could also represent youthful love (the red car) existing within the rain city (the fountain). Neat.
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"Tinseltown is in the rain." For someone who was born in LA and went to college there, that line has a special resonance for me. I've seen the city glittering at night from the Griffiths Observatory, and indeed something happens to the light when a light rain or mist comes.
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"Tall buildings- reach up in vain." Here he introduces the tension between stillness and movement. Actual physical buildings, which do not move, metaphorically reaching up to the sky, but to no avail.
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"I knew- I'd seen it all before" Suddenly, he's looking at the past through the theme of permanence. Nothing is actually "new"- notice the play on words with "knew." Clever.
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The song uses themes of permanence and change, stillness and movement, and past and present to do some interesting things. Look at the first line "Why did we ever come so far?" Here we get a sense of change, movement, and the past in one short line.
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Been thinking about the atmospheric beauty of The Blue Nile's "Tinseltown in the Rain" ever since recommending it to a musician friend. Drawing on my English Lit degree (I doubled it with History), consider the lyrics for a moment.
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Map of Quebec City 1776 at the time of the American siege, overlaid on Google Earth. My digital work. -- I'm going to use this GE map plus animated icons and possibly 3-D walls and buildings to analyze the battle step by step. @USArmyCMH
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Btw, the colors will look different depending on your monitor. I have two big 4K monitors and they have different color profiles.
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As an experiment, I made a more winter palette version of John Trumball's painting "The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, Dec 1775." The original is a masterpiece in every way- NOT trying to make a "better" version, just training on PS.
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Very pleased to see that the Vietnam War "Dustoff" helicopter crews will soon receive a Congressional Gold Medal to recognize their extraordinary service to our country. I found the title pic from our Army Signal Corps collection at NARA. @USArmyCMH
stripes.com
Helicopter crews of the Vietnam War known as “Dustoff” crews will be the latest military group to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, which honors the estimated 3,000 pilots, medics, and crew who...
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Two maps of Montreal, circa 1766 and 1776, digitally restored and enhanced by erikthehistorian (erik villard) @USArmyCMH .-- Tried to justify on Google Earth, but the landscape has changed A LOT!
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RT @RepDerekKilmer: Today, the House unanimously passed bipartisan legislation I led with @cathymcmorris to award the Dustoff crewmembers o….
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Cover of the 41st Inf Div history of WWII, with title sheet added.From Ike Skelton library.Digital work by erikthehistorian (erik villard) @USArmyCMH
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Cover of the 32d Inf Div history in World War II.From the Ike Skelton library.Digital restoration by erikthehistorian (erik villard) @USArmyCMH
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Respect to him and all of his fellow Marines who fell during Opn Swift in the Que Son Valley 4-14 Sep 67. There is a group of people related to the vets of 1-5 Marines over there right now to honor those men. I was able to pinpoint the exact movements of B-1-5 for them.
RIP 🙏🏼🇺🇸.
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This is so perfect on so many levels. :).
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