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Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia is the fear that 666 is the number of the Devil.  Aside Revelations 13, there are some peculiar theories as to the origin of the number.  June 6, 1666 was a good day for that old time blogger, Samuel Pepys, because of English victories at sea over the Dutch.  In part he wrote:

Up betimes, and vexed with my people for having a key taken out of the chamber doors and nobody knew where it was, as also with my boy for not being ready as soon as I, though I called him, whereupon I boxed him soundly, and  then to my business at the office and on the Victualling Office, and thence by water to St. James’s, whither he [the Duke of York] is now gone, it being a monthly fast-day for the plague. … Mightily pleased with this happy day’s newes, and the more, because confirmed by Sir Daniel Harvy,  who was in the whole fight with the Generall, and tells me that there appear but thirty-six in all of the Dutch fleete left at the end of the voyage when they run home.  The joy of the City was this night exceeding great.

September 2 that year was a bad day, as the Great Fire of 1666 burned down medieval London.  Pepys wrote:

Spirals of great fire and flame lept forth from every chimney and London was left but a ruin.

The fire smoldered until March of 1667.  On the bright side, the Great Fire did end the previous year’s plague and made way for the great architectural works of Christopher Wren.

Speaking of fire and history, today is the aniversary of D-Day, “The End of the Beginning” of Hitler’s Nazis, in 1944, and the shooting of James Meredith, the first black man to attend the University of Mississippi, in 1966.

         

    

The Flag of Earth was first raised May 17, 1970, the creation of James W. Cadle.  He made it because, despite being a great patriot, he was disappointed that an American flag was planted on the moon in July 1969; after all we had won the Moon race, wasn’t it time for a more universal symbol? 

The Flag of Earth flies at many SETI locations around the world. It symbolizes the fact that SETI is carried out on behalf of humankind as a whole. The yellow part of the flag represents the sun, the blue circle the Earth, and the small white circle the Moon.

Below is an original picture of Buzz Aldrin on the Moon (notice the dirt on the suit), and a remarkable computer reproduction by Andrea Bertaccini of the Life Magazine cover based on that picture.  Maybe he will make one of Buzz saluting the Flag of Earth?

On April 6, 1906, 12 days before the San Francisco earthquake, cartoonist James Stuart Blackton and Thomas Edison released the first animation – a film of a man puffing cigar smoke while his sweetheart rolled her eyes in disapproval, a dog jumping through a hoop, and a juggler. They used Edison’s newly invented Kinestoscope (which Edison had patented the same year, 1897, as the phonograph ), and called the film The Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. Blackton had studied Edweard Muybridge’s pioneering sequential photographs for inspiration.

You can study the book, Animation, The Whole Story by Howard Beckerman , animation professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Or you can read all kinds of stuff , the blog of Ren Hoek and Stimpson J. Cat creator and animator extraordinare John Kricfalusi (pronounced like my name, ‘JohnK’ :-O, he also happens to be of Hungarian origin, though he was born in Canada – ‘falusi’ means ‘from the town of’ and ‘s’ is pronounced ‘sh’ in Hungarian).

Ren was fashioned after Hungarian actor Peter Lorre , an inspiration for many cartoons (see Tex Avery’s wonderful rendition). During the Hayes Commission investigation of the late 40s, Lorre was asked to name anyone suspicious he had met since coming to the United States. Lorre responded with a list of everyone he knew. As a young man in Vienna, Lorre was a student of Sigmund Freud. Alice was a student of Sophie Freud, Sigmund’s granddaughter.

 

1. Alan points out this important date in history, February 26, 1616, when the Spanish Inquisition delivers an injunction to Galileo.
2. Lia dons her Inquisitor garments, complete with instruments.
3. The streets are crowded with traffic.
4. Last call at the bar.

Allison rows in my rowing club (CRI - usually in bow with me in the 2 seat) and is a terrific photographer.  She just closed a month-long exhibition at the New England School of Photography Center for Photographic Exhibitions on Beacon Street.

“The moon is tangible, but also mythic, which is a compelling dichotomy. It waxes and wanes, directs tides, and waltzes into poetry.”

She is available for weddings – see her website.

The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, home of the best science museum in the world, the Exporatorium (founded by Frank Oppenheimer – brother of physicist Robert J.), as pictured by the Giga Pixel Project.