Mae West was a controversial American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades. Known for her bawdy double entendres, she made a name for herself in burlesque and vaudeville, and on the stage in New York, before moving to Hollywood in 1932. The American Film Institute named West 15th among the greatest female stars of all time. She was born on this day in 1893.
Ernest Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His minimalist style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s. In 1954, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature following the publication of The Old Man and the Sea. He was born on July 21, 1899 and committed suicide in 1961.
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed “Lady Day,” she pioneered a new vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists. Holiday is perhaps most celebrated for singing “Strange Fruit,” a protest song that became one of her standards and was made famous with her 1939 recording. She died on this day in 1959.
Björk Guðmundsdóttir is an Icelandic singer-songwriter with an eclectic musical style and seven acclaimed studio albums. Three of her 1990s singles from Post charted in the UK Top 10. Björk wore her celebrated “swan dress” to the 2001 Oscars for her Selmasongs duet with Thom Yorke of Radiohead, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song.
Bill Cosby is an American comedian, actor and television producer. During the 1980s, Cosby produced and starred in The Cosby Show (1984-1992), which is considered one of the decade’s defining sitcoms. He is also known for The Electric Company, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids and A Different World. Cosby is a notable spokesman for Jell-O and other products. He was born on this day in 1937.
Note: The Cosby Sweater Project is great.
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect and interior designer who believed in designing harmonious structures of organic architecture. This philosophy was best exemplified by his design for Fallingwater (1935) in Pennsylvania, which has been called “the best all-time work of American architecture.” Wright was born on this day in 1867.
Of Wright’s over 400 works, only one structure is located in Oregon. It’s the Gordon House at the Oregon Garden in Silverton. I plan to visit the Fallingwater property when I’m back in Pennsylvania later this month.
Rachel Carson was an American marine biologist whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement. Her book Silent Spring (1962) documented detrimental effects of pesticides on the environment, particularly on birds. This led to a nationwide ban on DDT, and inspired a grassroots environmental movement that resulted in the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She was born on May 27, 1907.
Trent Reznor is an American singer-songwriter, composer and record producer. Reznor has led the industrial rock project Nine Inch Nails as vocalist and multi-instrumentalist since 1988. In 2010, he and his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, formed the post-industrial band How to Destroy Angels alongside fellow composer Atticus Ross, with whom Reznor has scored two films. Reznor was on born on this day in 1965.
David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released solo recordings and worked with various media including film and photography. He was born on this day in 1952.
Note: The inspiration for this 8-bit character is Stop Making Sense, a 1984 concert movie featuring Talking Heads live on stage. The movie is notable for Byrne’s “big suit,” an absurdly oversized business suit he dons late in the concert for the song “Girlfriend is Better.”
Eddie Vedder is an American musician and singer-songwriter best known for being the lead singer and one of three guitarists of the alternative rock band Pearl Jam. He is widely considered an icon of alternative rock and Seattle grunge. Vedder was originally invited to Seattle in 1990 by former Mother Love Bone members to audition for the Temple of the Dog tribute project and their new band Mookie Blaylock (renamed Pearl Jam in 1991).
Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), he is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which includes the internationally recognized print The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created during the 1820s. Hokusai died on this day in 1849.
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.
Update: Heidi and I were married on 11/11/12, so now her last name is Cavalier.
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.
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.
Ludwig van Beethoven is a German composer and virtuoso pianist. He is one of the most famous and influential of all composers, and is an important figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras. His hearing began to deteriorate in his late twenties, yet he continued to compose, conduct and perform, even after becoming completely deaf. He died on this day in 1827.
Helen Keller is an American author and political activist. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The story of how Keller’s teacher broke through the isolation and helped her learn to communicate is the basis for the play and film The Miracle Worker. A prolific author, Keller was outspoken in her opposition to war and campaigned for women’s suffrage, workers’ rights and socialism.
Helen Keller is one of a trio of American women activists (along with Clara Barton and Harriet Tubman) that recently appeared to my girlfriend in a dream.
In early March 1945, Anne Frank died at age 15 in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. She later became of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Her diary documents her experiences hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II and chronicles two years of her life, from 1942 to 1944. Frank gained international fame posthumously after her diary was published in 1947.
Fiona Apple – No. 470
Fiona Apple is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She has released four albums, all critically acclaimed: Tidal (1996), When the Pawn… (1999), Extraordinary Machine (2005) and The Idler Wheel… (2012). Apple’s vocal range is contralto and her musical style contains elements of jazz and alternative rock.
Fiona Apple is one of my favorites. Tonight Heidi and I will see her in concert at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon. Blake Mills opens. By the way, in case you’ve forgotten, Fiona’s stunning live cover of Elvis Costello’s “I Want You” still exists.