Bill Russell is a former NBA player with the Boston Celtics from 1956-1969. He played the center position and is one of the greatest NBA players of all time. Russell was the centerpiece of the Celtics dynasty that won 11 NBA Championships during his 13-year career.
Note: This is 8-bit character #4 of the 13 greatest NBA players of all time.
Tiny Ivo is a stuffed animal that resides on our bed. He is a brown woolen unicorn made in Oregon by Krystal and Mark Sharp, also known as The Roaming Peddlers. This magical unicorn, which my girlfriend Heidi bought in 2011, is embroidered with flowers and stuffed with about 1 1/2 pounds of organic herbs and flax seeds. He is a Magical Forest Friends creature.
P.S. The name Heidi gave him was inspired by Golden the Pony Boy in The Science of Sleep, a favorite film in our house.
Today I am celebrating 404 days of pixel art (and, of course, the HTTP 404 error message that lets you know what you’re looking for was not found). Instead of yet another genocidal dictator, religious icon or superhero, today’s character is my girlfriend. Heidi is a native Oregonian who lives in Corvallis with Ian Cavalier, Eli, Tanuki and The King. She is likely to be found with her teacup, camera and bicycle. Attempting to locate other items she owns will usually result in a 404 error (and much digging through heaps of clothes, sketches and books).
P.S. Heidi calls my 8-bit characters “the tinies.” Now she is a “tiny” herself.
The 37th President of the United States and the only president to resign the office, due to the Watergate scandal. Although Nixon initially escalated the war in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970, he subsequently ended U.S. involvement in 1973. He was responsible for the deaths of 70,000 Vietnamese and Cambodian civilians during the Vietnam War. He died on April 22, 1994.
Note: This is 8-bit U.S. president #12 of 43.
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon.” His surviving works include about 38 plays and 154 sonnets. He wrote many tragedies, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello and Macbeth. He died on this day in 1616.
Vladimir Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years (1917-1924), as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a socialist economic system. He was born on April 22, 1870.
Note: Happy Earth Day on Sunday! In Soviet Russia, Earth Day celebrates you.
Charles Darwin was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that evolution resulted from a process called natural selection. Darwin published his theory with compelling evidence for evolution in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species. He died on this day in 1882.
Boba Fett is a character in the Star Wars franchise. He first appeared in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back in 1980. Boba Fett is a clone of Jango Fett, who raises him as a son. In the original trilogy, Boba is a bounty hunter hired by Darth Vader to find the Millennium Falcon.
Chewbacca is a character in the Star Wars franchise. He first appeared in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1977. Chewbacca, a Wookiee, became Han Solo’s first mate and companion after Solo, then an Imperial Captain, refused an order to kill him while Chewbacca was a slave of the Empire.
Note: The Chewbacca defense is an amusing legal strategy from South Park that satirized attorney Johnnie Cochran’s defense of O.J. Simpson in his murder trial. In essence, “if Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit.” Look at the silly monkey!
Astronaut Jesus was conceived in 2004 by Argentine design collective Doma. A limited edition, five-color silkscreen poster exclusive to Andr8id was printed in 2004 and a matching vinyl toy was manufactured by adFunture in 2005. The visually striking toy is a 9.5″ (24 cm) figure with a removable helmet and a swiveling right arm. Doma is best known for their visual designs and installation arts.
I am amused by the concept that Jesus has been in outer space overseeing the world and will one day return to fix our problems. It would be fun to have my own Astronaut Jesus figure, but only a few hundred exist in the world, so I’m not holding my breath. After the original run of 500 Astronaut Jesus figures, six small limited edition runs were manufactured in different colors during 2005 and 2006, including a hot-pink flocked Wooster Collective Edition.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist and science communicator. He currently directs the Hayden Planetarium and is a research associate in the department of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. Since 2006 he has hosted the educational science television show NOVA scienceNOW on PBS. In 2013, Tyson will host a sequel to Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1980) television series.
Tyson has become one of my personal heroes, and is doing an honorable job of filling Carl Sagan’s shoes. Have we stopped dreaming?
Carl Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist and author. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Sagan is known for his popular science books and for the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. His books include Cosmos, Billions and Billions and the novel Contact, the basis for a 1997 film of the same name.
Carl Sagan and Kurt Vonnegut were my greatest living heroes during my adolescent years in the 1990s.
Kurt Vonnegut was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat’s Cradle (1963), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) and Breakfast of Champions (1973) blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. Vonnegut was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association. He also was a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union. He died on this day in 2007. So it goes.
Kurt Vonnegut and Carl Sagan were my greatest living heroes during my adolescent years in the 1990s. “Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you’ll look back and realize they were the big things.” – Kurt Vonnegut
Jack Kerouac was an American novelist, poet and face of the 1950s Beat Generation, with William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic spirituality, jazz, promiscuity, Buddhism, drugs, poverty and travel. His autobiographical novels include On the Road and Big Sur.
Leopold II was the king of the Belgians. Born in Brussels, Leopold is remembered as the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a large, privately controlled colonial region in Central Africa. He extracted a fortune from the Congo during the late 1800s, through the collection of ivory, and by forcing the population to collect sap from rubber plants. His harsh regime was responsible for the deaths of 10 million people. He was born on this day in 1835.
Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus’s most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Mary’s presence at the crucifixion and tomb of Jesus is consistent with her role as grieving wife and widow. But we’re pretty sure she was just a trusted disciple. Unless she totally was his wife, or a concubine, or prostitute or some other appropriated mythological archetype.
Happy Zombie Jesus Day on Sunday. Or, rather, Happy Lich King Day!
Booker T. Washington was an African-American educator, reformer and adviser to Republican presidents. He was the dominant figure in the black community in the U.S. from 1890 until his death in 1915. Representing the last generation of black American leaders born in slavery, he spoke on behalf of those who had lost their ability to vote through disfranchisement by southern legislatures. He was born on this day in 1856.
Roy Batty is the main antagonist of the 1982 American science-fiction film Blade Runner. The film is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Batty, portrayed by Rutger Hauer, is the leader of the renegade Nexus-6 replicants. He is intelligent, fast and skilled at combat, but still learning how to deal with developing emotions.
P.S. “All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.” – Roy Batty
The evil robot seductress from Metropolis, a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction film by Fritz Lang. Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia, and follows the attempts of activists Freder and Maria (Brigitte Helm) to overcome the class divide separating the wealthy intellectuals and working class. In this bizarre labor-relations parable, Rotwang the scientist creates a robotic double of Maria to generate chaos and discredit her.
Note: Maria is basically the great-grandmother of C-3PO.
Thumkii (Monchhichis) – No. 406
Monchhichi is a line of Japanese stuffed toy monkeys that Mattel introduced to the U.S. in the late 1970s. The Hanna-Barbera cartoon series Monchhichis debuted in 1983. Monchhichis are monkey-like creatures who live in the forest land of Monchia at the tops of very tall trees, high above the clouds. As a child, one of my favorite stuffed animals was a Monchhichi. I believe the character was the thumb-sucking Thumkii.
After additional, very important research, I have identified both of my beloved thumb-sucking monkey dolls from childhood. One was a tan, 11″ monkey from Atlanta Novelty, a division of Gerber Products. And the other was the banana-holding Thumkey, a 7″ Russ Berrie knockoff of the Monchhichi line. Both had plush bodies with plastic faces and hands.