In Memorium: William Shakespeare: 1564 – 23 April 1616

For the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, I bring you his memorial in Southwark Cathedral. 

I am completely operational, and all my circuits are functioning perfectly - HAL 9000 #QoTD

Lunar Base Clavius: 2001: A Space Odyssey artwork
(Robert T. McCall), Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

... and another birthday for H.A.L 9000!

H.A.L 9000 turns 24 ... or maybe 19. HAL 9000, unit 3 was activated at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in either 1992 (in the film) or 1997 (the book).

Here are some past 2001 posts:

• "I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do." HAL 9000 #QotD
• QotD: "I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992" - HAL 9000
• From Lunar Base Clavius to Tranquility Base
• HAL 9000 another year older!
• Happy Birthday HAL 9000!

"Connecting the Oceans: 100th Anniversary of the Panama Canal" (make that 101 years!)

On this, the 101st anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal, I'd like to point you to a great blog post from Pamela Henson (Smithsonian Institution Archives) from the Archive's blog, The Bigger Picture.

Here are some related resources from the post:

Related Resources

• “1910-1912 Exploration of Panama,” Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Biodiversity Heritage Library
• 150 Years of Smithsonian Research in Latin America, online exhibition, Smithsonian Institution Archives
• 1910-1912 Biological Survey of the Panama Canal Zone, National Museum of Natural History

Below are some of my pictures from the Canal from recent visits:

Happy birthday, @Smithsonian Institution! Keep on "increasing and diffusing" for Americans and the world!

"On August 10, 1846, the United States Congress passed the legislation (9 Stat. 102) founding the Smithsonian Institution as an establishment dedicated to the "increase and diffusion of knowledge," and President James K. Polk signed it into law the same day. This legislation was the culmination of over a decade of debate within the Congress, and among the general public, over an unusual bequest. When the English chemist and mineralogist, James Smithson, died in 1829, he left a will stating that if his nephew and sole heir died without heirs, his estate should go to the United States “to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge." Smithsonian Archives. General History

In case you were wondering, the building on the right is not the famed Castle of the Smithsonian in Washington, but rather Syon House in west London, one of the family homes of the Duke of Northumberland. Had the Duke acknowledged James Smithson, perhaps this is the building we'd associate him with instead of this one:

"Giant steps are what you take / Walking on the moon" - Sting #QotD

Apollo 11 Command Module, Smithsonian
National Air and Space Museum

Some may say
I'm wishing my days away
No way
And if it's the price I pay
Some say
Tomorrow's another day
You stay
I may as well play

Giant steps are what you take
Walking on the moon
I hope my legs don't break
Walking on the moon
We could walk forever
Walking on the moon
We could be together
Walking on, walking on the moon

"Walking on the Moon" The Police

Another year goes by and another year without people back on the moon, like they were in 1969, on this date, July 20 in fact. 46 years ago to be precise.

Some past Apollo posts:

• 2009: Walking on the Moon
• 2009: Smithsonian Apollo Model
• 2011: Shooting for the moon ... 42 years later ...
• 2012: From Lunar Base Clavius to Tranquility Base
• 2013: QotD: "Where’s my donut-shaped space station? Where’s my ticket to Mars?" -- Neal Stephenson

Smithsonian  / Air and Space Museum / Tranquility Base

"this happy place...is dedicated 2 the ideals, the dreams, & the hard facts that have created America" #QotD

On this date in 1955, Disneyland opened to the world ... Walt opened the park with the following statement:

To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America, with the hope that it will be a source of  joy and inspiration to all the world. - Walt Disney, July 17, 1955

The above quote is from Walt Disney's speech at the opening of Disneyland ... I sometimes wonder if the future of Disney (and by a complex series of associations, U.S. Copyright Law, would have been different if Walt lived ...

Would it have been a different "great big beautiful tomorrow"? ...

"There's A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow"

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow
Shining at the end of everyday
There's a great big beautiful tomorrow
And tomorrow's just a dream away
Man has a dream and that's the start
He follows his dream with mind and heart
And when it becomes a reality
It's a dream come true for you and me - Sherman Brothers

Can't buy me love, but you could buy A Hard Day's Night in 1964

Today, in 1964, The Beatles released the album, A Hard Day's Night (in the UK). The US version (much different track listing and including George Martin instrumentals) was released on 26 June 1964).

"My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still" Whitman, the Death of Lincoln, For the Ages & Angels #QotD

And today marks the death of Abraham Lincoln ... the Petersen House across from Ford's Theatre.

* * * * * 

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
    Here Captain! dear father!
      This arm beneath your head;
        It is some dream that on the deck,
          You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
    Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
      But I, with mournful tread,
        Walk the deck my Captain lies,
          Fallen cold and dead.

"Oh Captain! My Captain!"
Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass, 1900 edition)

If you don't know where you're going / Any road will take you there - George Harrison #QotD

A repeat from a post of a few years ago ("All Those Years Ago" perhaps?).

Today would have been George Harrison's 68th birthday. I'm sure that Somewhere in England there are people who remember him at 33 1/3. But then, All Things Must Pass when we're Living in a Material World that's so full of Extra Texture that it causes some of us to live on Cloud Nine while others have just Gone Troppo. George was a bit of a Dark Horse in the post-Beatle hit making, but his Electronic Sound really was a Wonderwall of music that left us all just a little Brainwashed via his Eastern leanings.
Happy birthday, George, we miss you!

"I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do." HAL 9000 #QotD

H.A.L 9000 turns 23 ... or maybe 18. HAL 9000, unit 3 was activated at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in either 1992 (in the film) or 1997 (the book).

Earlier this month, I stopped by the famed Chelsea Hotel in New York where Arthur C. Clarke worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Photo at right is the plaque on the hotel noting Clarke's stay.
\
Here are some past 2001 posts:

• QotD: "I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992" - HAL 9000
• From Lunar Base Clavius to Tranquility Base
• HAL 9000 another year older!
• Happy Birthday HAL 9000!

Elvis at 80 ...

Happy birthday, Elvis! 80 years old and still, in the minds of fans, still young.

I saw Elvis in 1971 (he was at the Sahara Tahoe between July 20-August 2, not sure which night I saw, but here's a typical set list). See link below for memories of that concert.

Here are some past posts on the King of Rock and Roll:

• Elvis Aaron Presley, 1935 - 1977. Died today, 36 years ago today
• Welcome to my nightmare, I hope I didn't scare you ...
• 32 years ago ...
• Elvis ... (memories of an Elvis concert, 1971)
• Graceland, Memphis, TN

100° to 0°! Happy birthday Anders Celsius #FamousScientists

Anders Celsius, creator of Celsius/Centigrade scale of temperature, was born on this date in 1701 in Uppsala, Sweden.

In his original scale, Celsius had the scale go the opposite way (water boils at 0° and freezes at 100°), but another famous colleague of his at the University of Uppsala (a fellow we're familiar with, one Carl Linnaeus), swapped it around after Celsius' death.

When I was in Gamla Uppsala in October of 2014, I visited the church there (the original Swedish cathedral). His grave, unfortunately, is currently covered by flooring.

It was 50 years ago today ... that The Beatles had a Hard Day's Night in Seattle!

50 years ago (21 August 1964), The Beatles stayed at the famous Edgewater Hotel in Seattle.

I stayed at the Edgewater a while back (but not in Suite 272 -- the Beatles' suite; neither did go fishing from my room).

Here's the setlist from the Seattle Center Colosseum where they performed:

1. Twist and Shout 
2. You Can't Do That 
3. All My Loving 
4. She Loves You 
5. Things We Said Today 
6. Roll Over Beethoven 
7. Can't Buy Me Love 
8. If I Fell 
9. I Want to Hold Your Hand 
10. Boys 
11. A Hard Day's Night 
12. Long Tall Sally 

• The Beatles: Edgewater Hotel
• Beatles slept at Seattle's Edgewater Hotel 50 years ago; so can you (LA Times)
• Come Together, Right Now Over The Edgewater Hotel For a Beatles Party (45th anniversary)
• Beatles' stay at Edgewater helped mark its place in history
• Beatles Suite at the Edgewater
• Suite 272 at the Edgewater Hotel, Seattle, Washington, yeah, yeah, yeah!

The British came! Today is the 50th anniversary of The Beatles first concert in the U.S. at the Washington Coliseum

The Washington Coliseum is looking a little shabby these days (well, for quite a few years!)

Qotd: When teaching a well-established truth, better to please 1 intelligent person and displease 10K fools [paraphrase] Maimonides

Here's the full quote:

[W]hen I have a difficult subject before me -- when I find the road narrow, and can see no other way of teaching a well established truth except by pleasing one intelligent man and displeasing ten thousand fools -- I prefer to address myself to the one man, and to take no notice whatever of the condemnation of the multitude; I prefer to extricate that intelligent man from his embarrassment and show him the cause of his perplexity, so that he may attain perfection and be at peace.
("Directions for the Study of this Work," The Guide for the Perplexed; Friedlander translation from 1904)

Maimonides (Mosheh ben Maimon, 1135-1204) is the author of today's quote. It's from his The Guide for the Perplexed (later 12th century), today, 12 December marks his death

And so, it just so happens, I stopped by Maimonides house earlier this year when I was in Fes (see more posts on Morocco!); here's a picture peeking in:

Peeking in the house

Maimonides was also an alum of the University of al-Karaouine (some shots of the Uni below):

"Lee. Fifty years from now, they'll still be arguing about the grassy knoll, the Mafia, some Cuban crouched behind a stockade fence"

50 years now since the JFK assassination and it still holds a fascination for us ... quote above is from "November 22, 1963" by Stephen Sondheim and his play, Assassins.

OSWALD
I didn't come here to shoot the president.

BOOTH
He didn't come here to get shot...All your life you've been a victim, Lee. A victim of indifference and neglect. Of your mother's scorn, you're wife's contempt, of Soviet stupidity, American injustice. You've finally had enough, so how're you planning to get even? By becoming your own victim.

OSWALD
I am not a murderer.

BOOTH
Who said you were?

OSWALD
You just said I should kill the President.

BOOTH
Lee, when you kill a president, it isn't murder. Murder is a tawdry little crime; it's born of greed, or lust, or liquor. Adulterers and shopkeepers get murdered. But when a president gets killed, when Julius Caesar got killed -- he was assassinated. And the man who did it...

OSWALD
Brutus.

BOOTH
Ah! You know his name. Brutus assassinated Caesar -- what? -- two thousand years ago, and here's a high school drop-out with a dollar twenty-five an hour job in Dallas, Texas, who knows who he was. And they say fame is fleeting...

OSWALD
This is stupid. Up here on the sixth floor, what would I do? Throw school books at him?

BOOTH
What's in the package?

OSWALD
What package?

BOOTH
The package that you brought to work. What's in it?

OSWALD
Curtain rods.

BOOTH
You sure?

...

OSWALD
To who? To you?

(a chorus of "yes"s from the Assassins)

I'm responsible to me and no one else!

BOOTH
Not anymore, Lee. Fifty years from now, they'll still be arguing about the grassy knoll, the Mafia, some Cuban crouched behind a stockade fence, but this -- right here, right now -- this is the real conspiracy. And you're a part of it.

OSWALD
Get out of my way.

BOOTH
Listen to me, Lee. You have to do this. Now. You won't get another chance.

OSWALD
So what? So I'll do something else. I'll shoot my wife. I'll shoot my kids. I won't shoot anyone! Who cares?!

BOOTH
He wants to know who cares...I care, you stupid fool! We all care! Haven't you been listening, for Christ's sake?! Are you such a vapid, vacuous nonentity -

Previous posts:

• 11.22.2012
• 11.22.2011

QotD: "... government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." A. Lincoln

3D print of Lincoln Life Mask

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.

In many ways, it seems that our country is yet again in the midst of a great trial. Not as bloody as the Civil War, but as full of partisan rancor, a paralysis of governing one wonder if the government of/by/for the people shall endure, and a time when liberty and freedom are controlled by governmental forces that at times makes Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus (signed into law just months before the Gettysburg Address) pale.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, 1863

Happy birthday iPod! Introduced on this date in 2001

The original iPod was introduced by Apple on this date in 2001. A couple years later, in 2003, the advertising firm of Chiat/Day created the distinctive black silhouetted iPod user on a bold, colorful background.

Over the next twelve years, Apple continued to release new and varied versions of the iPod (Nano, Shuffle, Touch). The silhouette ad campaign also continued for a number of years with various variations on the them.

In honor of that campaign, my faithful dodo avatar has gone all Apple-ly!

Here are more variations:

Flags across Rosslyn, 2013 ... 9/11 twelve years later

Rosslyn, 2013

Yet again, Arlington commemorates 9/11 with a display of large flags hanging from the tall buildings. Looking around, there are fewer flags this year, and many new buildings.

Here's a look back at some past years:

• September 11, 2008
• September 11, 2009
• September 10, 2011
• September 11, 2012

And here are some posts from the 10th anniversary:

• Views from the World Trade Center, 1980
• Looking back at 9/11, emails from the days after
• Official emails, 9/11, and the days after

---

2013

2013

QotD: "He used to spend a long time on a single leaf, trying to catch its shape, and its sheen, and the glistening of dewdrops on its edges" Tolkien

"He had a number of pictures on hand; most of them were too large and ambitious for his skill.He was the sort of painter who can paint leaves better than trees. He used to spend a long time on a single leaf, trying to catch its shape, and its sheen, and the glistening of dewdrops on its edges. Yet he wanted to paint a whole tree, with all of its leaves in the same style, and all of them different." "Leaf by Niggle" by J.R.R. Tolkien