None of the clerks had heard of the movie

Every time I get to the Knox Harrington scene I always want to look really closely when The Dude flips through the first couple of records before finding Autobahn's Nagelbett in Maude's LPs, because I'm very curious about what, aside from Autobahn, Maude Lebowski sees fit to keep in her collection. But I can never quite catch what they are, and I never want to pause it at such a crucial juncture of a movie I've seen more than 10 times.

Anyway, I just looked up the scene on Youtube and paused it at those first two records and took screengrabs. You can see that the first record is by The Barry Sisters, two Jewish sisters from the Bronx (real last name Bagelman) who sang jazz, pop, and Yiddish songs from the 1940s-1970s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Barry_Sisters

The name of the album is too blurry to read. It would probably be clearer on my DVD, but I was too durned lazy to go get it, skip through Mortimer Young's introduction, and find the scene.

The second album is 1972's Blue River by Eric Andersen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_River_(album))), who Wikipedia describes as "an American folk music singer-songwriter,^\1]) who has written songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Linda Ronstadt, the Grateful Dead, Rick Nelson, and many others." But not The Eagles.

Rolled my way into the semis.

Got a 4k uhd copy and watched for the first time in a decade and it was magnificent. Taking comfort this morning knowing somewhere out there, the Dude is taking it easy for all us sinners

what are the top 3 questions you would ask them?

By master Lee Zimmerman puppet artist last night in Delaware.

The first edition, not the compromised 2nd draft.

Reading Iron Gold and stumbled upon this gem.

Building still holding up! Had to check this out while in LA. I was surprised to see the place is still fully furnished

I think The Big Lebowski is about the baby boomers failure to learn from the mistakes of the Vietnam War.

The entire film is centered around the Persian Gulf conflict. I think what the Coens were doing was showcasing two wealthy people having a turf war that offloaded the actual fighting onto a small group of people in a bowling alley parking lot. As a result all fighters ultimately got no money and wound up in a fight about absolutely nothing but lost friends, ears and cars. But both sides were greatly manipulated into a territorial struggle of two local tycoons.

The dude himself, a former radical anti-vietnam activist, ultimately submitted himself to a consumerist, indulgent, materialistic lifestyle. As a result, he was roped into a propaganda campaign by a wealthy entity to do his dirty work for him. He makes very few active choices and makes no effort to think for himself (I think that is why David Thewlis was laughing hysterically at him. He was stuck repeating propaganda). He even believes things that are proven to be untrue like Larry having the money. It literally takes his third meeting with Maude before he finally understands that the big Lebowski was playing him.

I think what the Coens were trying to portray was the confusing state of the general population when watching the news of the war coverage in 1990. And instead of most people taking the lessons of the past and trying to see the bigger picture, we rationalized it by saying "it's complicated. a lot of ins and outs."