Born in Seattle, Apolo Anton Ohno is a retired American short track speedskater and an eight-time medalist (two gold, two silver, four bronze) in the Winter Olympics (2002, 2006, 2010). At the age of 14, he became the youngest U.S. national champion in 1997 and was the reigning champion from 2001-2009, winning the title a total of 12 times. Ohno retired from speed skating in 2013 and now works as a commentator, TV host and motivational speaker.
The Evergreen State Geoducks mascot, Speedy, is NAIA pixel art mascot #1. I couldn’t resist this one any longer. In real life, a geoduck is a large, edible, saltwater clam from the Puget Sound that resembles a penis. But the Evergreen State mascot is basically a googly-eyed pickle wrapped in a gilded silver taco. The motto of Evergreen State, located in Olympia, Washington, is the tongue-in-cheek phrase “Omnia Extares,” which means “Let it all hang out.” By the way, real-life geoducks have an average lifespan of 147 years. (View reference images.)
The Willamette Bearcats mascot, Blitz, is NCAA Division III pixel art mascot #2 of 449. If you’re wondering, a bearcat is neither cat nor bear. Bearcats, also known as binturongs, are arboreal mammals with prehensile tails native to South and Southeast Asia forests. I’m really not sure how so many American college teams ended up with bearcat mascots. Maybe because bear + cat sounds extra ferocious? (View reference images.)
I miss Salem, Oregon, home of Willamette University. I lived there for four years, from 2001 through 2005, and I still visit when I can. I particularly enjoy the area around Willamette University, the capitol building grounds and Bush’s Pasture Park. Kurt Vonnegut called Willamette University’s campus “heaven on Earth.” I used to play tennis on the Willamette courts. The lovely Mill Race runs the full length of campus. In 2004, I almost got a web developer/designer job at Willamette University but ended up accepting a similar position at Oregon State University (where I still work). This ultimately meant I had to move south, because the 45-minute commute to Corvallis got old after nine months.
Colin Meloy is the lead singer and songwriter for the indie folk rock band The Decemberists from Portland, Oregon. The most recent Decemberists studio album, The King Is Dead (2011), was the band’s sixth. In addition to vocals, Meloy performs with an acoustic guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bouzouki, harmonica and percussion. Meloy made his debut as a children’s writer in 2011 with Wildwood, illustrated by his wife, Carson Ellis. The second novel in the series is Under Wildwood (2012). Meloy was born on this day in 1974.
Once my two-month-old daughter Ramona gets a little older, my wife Heidi plans to introduce Portland’s Forest Park to her as Wildwood. The Decemberists are one of our favorite bands. It’s nice to be able to see them play with some frequency, since we live in Oregon.
Kevin Durant is an American professional basketball forward who plays for the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder, formerly the Seattle SuperSonics. Standing at 6′ 9″, Durant has won three NBA scoring titles, the NBA Rookie of the Year Award and an Olympic gold medal. At age 24, Durant became the youngest player in NBA history to join the 50-40-90 club, the ultimate standard for shooters. At the University of Texas, he became the first ever freshman to be named Naismith College Player of the Year. In the 2007 NBA Draft, Durant was selected second overall by the Sonics. After his rookie season, the team moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder. Behind his play, the Thunder reached the 2012 NBA Finals. In 2010, 2012, and 2013, Durant finished second in voting for NBA MVP. He was born on this day in 1988.
Gary Larson is an American cartoonist. He is the creator of The Far Side, a surreal single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to over 900 newspapers for 15 years. The series ended with Larson’s retirement on January 1, 1995. His 23 books of collected cartoons have combined sales of more than 45 million copies. In an open letter, Larson famously asked his fans not to distribute his cartoons (which he called his “kids”) illegally on the Internet. He was born on this day in 1950.
I have depicted 8-bit Gary Larson as the red-haired fat kid from his The Far Side cartoons, though Larson is neither overweight nor has red hair. The Fat Kid was one of the many unnamed stock characters that regularly appeared in Larson’s comic, perhaps most famously in the Midvale School for the Gifted strip. When I was in junior high school in the early 1990s, I expressed my appreciation of The Far Side by making a pretty great (if I do say so myself) papier-mâché head of the Fat Kid for a Mardi Gras art project.
Ramona Quimby is a fictional character in the series of novels by Beverly Cleary. She starts out in the Henry Huggins series as the pestering little sister of Henry’s friend Beatrice, called “Beezus” by Ramona and her family. Ramona was given a larger role in the novel Beezus and Ramona, and the series concentrated on her from kindergarten onward. Ramona lives on Klickitat Street in Portland, Oregon. She likes fairy tales, playing in the park and adventures. She dislikes spelling, perfect Susan and having to play with Willa Jean.
I have some exciting news. My daughter Ramona Mira Cavalier was born on August 5, 2013 at 4:36 a.m., weighing 8 lbs. 8 oz. and measuring 19.5 inches. When she’s a little older, I’m sure we will read books from the Beverly Cleary series with her. I remember Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (1981), the sixth book of the series, with particular fondness. Also, when my wife Heidi was in her mid-20s, she lived on Failing Street in Portland, which is three blocks from NE Klickitat Street. And Heidi’s grandmother lived just two blocks away on Beech Street. In nearby Grant Park is the Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden. I am lucky to have such a wonderful wife and darling newborn daughter. ♥
Tom Robbins is a bestselling American author. He has written nine novels, and one collection, since 1971. His novels are “seriocomedies,” featuring complex, often wild stories with strong social and philosophical undercurrents, a satirical bent, and scenes extrapolated from carefully researched obscure facts. His 1976 novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was made into a movie in 1993 by Gus Van Sant. The Library of Congress states that Robbins was born on this day in 1936, though he claims he was born in 1932.
The Gonzaga Bulldogs mascot had its biggest Cinderella moment in 1999 when the 10th-seeded Gonzaga men’s basketball team advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament. This year, Gonzaga was the top-ranked team in the country going into the NCAA tournament, but the Bulldogs were upset in the Round of 32 by Wichita State (which contributed to the ruination of my bracket). This is NCAA Division I pixel art mascot #59 of 348. (View reference images.)
Miranda July is an American film director, screenwriter, actress and artist. Her body of work includes film, fiction, monologue, digital media presentations and live performance art (which she began while living in Portland, Oregon). July wrote, directed and starred in the films Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) and The Future (2011). Her most recent nonfiction book, It Chooses You, was published in 2011. July was born on February 15, 1974.
Miranda July is a hero of my wife Heidi and she wishes they were best friends. On that note, Heidi would like to share some biographical information about July that you won’t find on Wikipedia: “The same extraterrestrial who impregnated my mom also impregnated Miranda July’s mom, which means she and I are alien half-sisters.” Also, Heidi and I learned everything we know about making buttons from July.
Chuck Palahniuk is an American novelist and freelance journalist, who describes his work as transgressional fiction. He is best known as the author of the award-winning novel Fight Club (1996), which was made into a feature film. Beginning with Lullaby (2003), the style of his novels has shifted to satirical horror. Palahniuk has had 13 novels and two nonfiction books published, the most recent being Invisible Monsters Remix (2012), a restructured and updated version of his 1999 novel. He maintains homes in the states of Oregon and Washington. Palahniuk was born on this day in 1962.
Matt Groening is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, producer, animator and voice actor. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell (1977-2012) as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons (1989-present) and Futurama (1999-2003, 2008-present). Groening has won 12 Primetime Emmy Awards, 10 for The Simpsons and two for Futurama. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 14, 2012. Groening was born in Portland, Oregon on this day in 1954.
P.S. Given his Oregon roots, it is widely believed that Groening named the setting of The Simpsons after Springfield, Oregon (which is next to Eugene, home of the Oregon Ducks), despite his comments to the contrary.
Anna-Lynne Williams is a Seattle musician best known as the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of Trespassers William, an indie rock band active from 1997 to 2012. The style of Trespassers William is often called experimental shoegaze or dream pop music. In 2007, Anna-Lynne started recording solo music under the name Lotte Kestner. She is also a member of Ormonde, with Robert Gomez. In 2010, Anna-Lynne established the Saint-Loup Records label to release music by Sergius Gregory as well as Lotte Kestner. The newest Lotte Kestner album The Bluebird of Happiness is now available for preorder and will be released on February 26, 2013. Anna-Lynne was born on this day in 1978.
Yesterday Anna-Lynne was named Trainwreck’d Society’s Person of 2012, which made me happy. Trespassers William have been one of my very favorite bands since I stumbled across an MP3 of “I Know” in 2001—and Anna-Lynne’s solo work is just as beautiful and haunting. On November 5, 2010, Heidi and I serendipitously had our first date at a small Trespassers William house show in the Wallingford district of Seattle. Also playing that night were OK Sweetheart and Goldfinch. On January 8, 2011, we returned to Seattle for a second Trespassers William house show, that time featuring Tomo Nakayama and Joshua Morrison. We have such fond memories of these wonderful, intimate concerts. Now two years later, Heidi and I are married and expecting our first child this summer. What I’m saying is that our happiness is pretty much Anna-Lynne’s fault. ♥
Scottie Pippen is a retired American professional basketball player who played 17 seasons in the NBA. He is most remembered for his 12 seasons with the Chicago Bulls, with whom he was instrumental in six NBA titles and their record 1995-96 season of 72 wins. Pippen, along with Michael Jordan, played an important role in transforming the Bulls team into a vehicle for popularizing the NBA around the world during the 1990s. Pippen is also the only person to have won an NBA title and Olympic gold medal in the same year twice (1992, 1996).
Russell A. Kirsch invented the square pixel. The history is that in the late 1940s, Kirsch led a research team that created America’s first internally programmable computer, the SEAC. By 1957 he and his team had invented a scanner which, using the computing power of SEAC, converted photographs to digital images. This breakthrough created the basis for satellite imaging, CAT scans, barcodes and desktop publishing. Kirsch is now retired and resides in Portland, Oregon. These days he claims that inventing square pixels was a bad idea and has a written a program that creates smoother, variably shaped pixels.
I think this story is really sweet. The first scanned digital image made on a computer in 1957 showed Kirsch’s baby son. Due to the importance of this first digital photograph, Life credited it as one of the 100 Photographs that Changed the World in 2003. Without Kirsch, this 8-bit-themed site wouldn’t be possible, in so many ways.
Neko Case is an American singer-songwriter and musician, best known for her solo career and her contributions as a member of the Canadian indie rock group The New Pornographers. Case recorded and toured for several years as Neko Case & Her Boyfriends before performing solely under her name. I particularly enjoy her Fox Confessor Brings the Flood album. Also, she is hilarious on Twitter.
Note: This 8-bit black dress is what she wore for the epic cover of her 2009 album Middle Cyclone, in which she stood barefoot, with a sword, on the hood of her burgundy 1967 Mercury Cougar. In 2011, Case auctioned the car to support 826 National, a nonprofit organization helping children become better writers.
Bill Nye is an American science educator, comedian, television host and mechanical engineer. He is best known as the host of the Disney/PBS children’s science show Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993-98) and for his many subsequent appearances in popular media as a science educator. His professional entertainment career began with a local sketch comedy television show in Seattle. He was born on this day in 1955.
Note: Nye studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University, where one of his professors was Carl Sagan. “Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.” – Bill Nye
Ken Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), and counterculture figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. “I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a hippie,” Kesey said. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) by Tom Wolfe tells the story of Kesey and his 1960s band of psychedelic drug-using Merry Pranksters. Kesey died of liver surgery complications on November 10, 2001.
At the time, it seemed ominous to me that the great Ken Kesey, an Oregon resident, died the weekend I moved to Oregon in 2001. As of today, I have lived in Oregon for exactly 11 years. I swear my presence didn’t kill him. Today is also the day that Heidi and I return home to Oregon after 40 days of backpacking and train-riding through 10 countries in Europe.
Troy Polamalu is a strong safety in the National Football League (NFL). He has won two Super Bowls (2005 and 2008) with the Pittsburgh Steelers and has been selected for the Pro Bowl seven times. Polamalu’s hair is his most distinguishing characteristic, allowing him to be easily spotted on the field. He is of American Samoan descent, went to high school in Oregon and has a million-dollar insurance policy for his hair.
Jason Lytle – No. 728
Jason Lytle is an American musician best known for his work in the indie rock group Grandaddy between 1992 and 2005. Since the group split, he has continued to release music as a solo artist and in collaboration with other musicians. Grandaddy reformed in 2012 for a series of live shows. In 2013 Lytle moved from Montana to Portland, Oregon. He was born on this day in 1969.
One of my very favorite albums is Grandaddy’s The Sophtware Slump (2000). It was an especially important album to me during my post-college cross-country road trip in the summer of 2001. I last saw Jason Lytle perform at a show at the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, Oregon on June 6, 2009. (Video of that entire show is available on YouTube, by the way.) I’m past due to see him/Grandaddy again.