On this day in 1890, the great geneticist Hermann Joseph Muller was born. He got the Nobel Prize for his work on the effects of radiation on biological systems and their genetics. But his most important work may have been his activism to promote the long-term negative effects of radiation, especially as a result of the nuclear testing that was going on like gangbusters at that time.

Paul Winchell was born in 1922. He was one of the greatest ventriloquists of all time. In the puppet and ventriloquist community, he is legend. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was huge on television. But he is probably best known today as the voice of Tigger in the Winnie-the-Pooh movies. As you will see in the video below, the puppet doesn’t just talk, it moves its arms around and does all kinds of stuff. He is using another puppeteer, which was unheard of then. Winchell was also a mechanical genius. He invented and the first artificial heart. Really! Anyway, here are two charming and funny bits with his two primary puppets, Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff:

Talk show host Phil Donahue is 78 today. He was important. He really did change the way that talk shows were produced. Of course, I haven’t really seen anything nearly as good since then. I love the following video clip from when Donahue went on The Factor with Bill O’Reilly. It isn’t the words that are spoken. The styles contrast so perfectly. Donahue is calm and thoughtful with a power that makes you think, “That’s how Thomas Paine must have been!” And O’Reilly is absolutely unhinged—clearly controlled by his inner rage. This isn’t to say that O’Reilly is stupid; he’s clearly a smart guy. But his rage really does take him out of contention for being anyone you would ever listen to. But the video also shows something you don’t often see from Bill O’Reilly: fear. He’s afraid of Donahue. And he should be! Donahue is a far greater man than O’Reilly is in his grandest dreams.

The great guitarist Frank Zappa was born in 1940. He has always been an under appreciated guitarist. And I’ll be honest: when I was younger, I didn’t really get it. Now I listen to him and I am blown away. To some extent, it is that he was too revolutionary. He goes way beyond rock fundamentals. I remember reading a quote from Eddie Van Halen (who is without question a great guitarist) saying that he rarely played anything outside the blues scale. And it is amazing how far that can take you. But Zappa really did go far outside that. Maybe it is more correct to call him a jazz guitarist, but really, he was a rock guy. Here he is doing “The Torture Never Stops” (the guitar playing starts around the 5:00 mark):

Other birthdays: German composer Hermann Raupach (1728); the most overrated person in the formation of this country Paul Revere (1734); the great French painter Thomas Couture (1815); composer Lorenzo Perosi (1872); evolutionary theorist Sewall Wright (1889); cartoonist John Severin (1921); actor Jane Fonda (76); guitarist Albert Lee (70); actor Samuel L Jackson (65); and comedian Andy Dick (48).

The day, however, belongs to the great Italian painter of the Italian Renaissance, Masaccio who was born on this day in 1401. In many ways, he was a first painter of the period. He truly was revolutionary—one of the first painters anywhere to use the vanishing point. If you know any of his work, it is probably his fresco, The Expulsion (see above), which shows Adam and Eve being banished from Eden. It is interesting in that until the 1980s, there were fig leaves covering their genitalia. But those were a later addition, so when the fresco was cleaned, they were removed. I find it fascinating how sexual mores change over time. People have this tendency to always think that the way things are is the way they have always been. Or that things just get more and more permissive. But that isn’t the way things work at all, and we would all be better off if we would just get over it. Regardless, Masaccio had a great influence on pretty much all painters that came after him. I don’t think it is an over-statement to say that without him, there would have been no Antonello da Messina or even probably Leonardo da Vinci. And he only lived to be 26 years old. It isn’t known how he died.

Here is his Holy Trinity where you can really see his use of the vanishing point:

Happy birthday Masaccio!

Some people really hate these birthday posts and some really like them. Over time, I think I’ve won over some of the haters, probably because they are better than they used to be. As a result, I keep doing them. But I hate doing it. They take forever. And for the last three days I have been slipping into a depression. You never realize just how horrible they are until you are in them. When in a manic phase, that depressed person who wants to crawl away and die just seems like another person. And on the other side, that manic person not only seems foreign, he seems like a fool. But one thing is for sure, it is easy to write a birthday post when I’m feeling “up.” I still complain, because I feel rushed. But now I look at the birthdays and I think, “So what?” My years of science training have made me able to push through and do things I’m not all that happy about doing. So here goes.

On this day in 1870, the writer Hector Hugh Munro, better known by his pen name Saki, was born. He was one of the great short story writers of his time, particularly noted for his humor. In fact, he was a primary influence on P G Wodehouse. He’s easy to compare to Dorothy Parker, in that he is wonderfully quotable. He was gay and conservative, so there is more than a hint of misogyny in his writing. Take, for example, the clever line, “Romance at short notice was her specialty.” But this one totally sums up my life, “I’m living so far beyond my means that we may almost be said to be living apart.”

The great American inventor Edwin Armstrong was born in 1890. He is best known for the invention of FM radio. Of course, it didn’t go well. In Corporations are Rarely Creators, I wrote, “Lessig then goes on to talk about the fight between Edwin Howard Armstrong, inventor of FM radio, and RCA. RCA wanted to stop FM radio because they made so much money off AM radio. This all led to FM radio being delayed for decades and Armstrong killing himself.” Welcome to America, bitch!

Other birthdays: one of the worst human beings and best baseball players ever, Ty Cobb (1886); jazz composer Fletcher Henderson (1897); film director George Stevens (1904); actor Ossie Davis (1917); musician Keith Richards (70); political activist Steve Biko (1946); film director Steven Spielberg (57); actor Ray Liotta (59); and actor Brad Pitt (50).

Well, it had to happen. After comparing so many artists to him, and often not favorably. The day belongs to the great painter, Paul Klee, who was born on this day in 1879. When I was a teen, I was crazy for Klee. Now, not so much. But there is no doubting his brilliance. And it really does matter what period you are looking at. More than any other painter that I know of, Klee developed in a positive direction his whole life. His later work is by far his best. What’s especially interesting about this is that the work got more and more simple. But his vision became more and more clear. A good example is Insula dulcamara which means (maybe) something like, “Island of bittersweet nightshade.” His original title for it was, “Isle of Calypso,” but he thought that too concrete. It was painted just a couple of years before his death when he seems to have known the end was near. It hearkens back to his trip two and a half decades earlier to Tunisia. A lot has been written about it and its meaning, but I think the emotional core of the painting is clear. And the use of colors is just masterful.

Happy birthday Paul Klee!

On this day in 1915, the great literary theorist Roland Barthes was born. These days he’s fallen out of favor, partly due to many of the excesses of later literary theorists. Also there is a belief, especially among conservative scholars that the only kind of valid truth is that which can be verified. That’s just silly. I’ve always found Barthes to be extremely insightful about the ways that language colors our perceptions of the world. We need this thinking more today than ever.

The great actor Wallace Shawn is 70 today. He is also a fine playwright. But the thing is that he writes primarily about sexual politics in the most explicit of ways. In fact, I don’t even know how some of his plays have been produced. It is absurdist work, mostly about people who are unable to relate to each other. Regardless, everyone knows him as an actor. Here he is in My Dinner With Andre, which he co-wrote with Andre Gregory. In this scene, Wallace lays out the urbane middle class philosophy of life. I mostly agree with it. Where I think the character shows some limitations is in his reductionist idea of the universe. Otherwise, I too think that not finding a cockroach in my coffee is about the best that can be hoped for in this life. Check out the clip, it’s really great and funny:

The great leader of Booker T & The MG’s, Booker T Jones is 69. Here he is with the band doing “Time Is Tight”:

Another great musician Neil Young is 68. I am a great fan of Buffalo Springfield. And since then, Young has done the best work of any of the great people in that band. Here he is doing “Harvest Moon”:

Other birthdays: activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815); playwright Ben Travers (1886); justice Harry Blackmun (1908); actor Grace Kelly (1929); murder mastermind Charles Manson (79); Buck Dharma of Blue Oyster Cult (66); gymnast Nadia Comaneci (52); political activist Naomi Wolf (51); ice skater Tonya Harding (43); actor Ryan Gosling (33); and actor Anne Hathaway (31).

The day, however, belongs to the great sculptor Auguste Rodin who was born on this day in 1840. He is best known for The Thinker, but it really ought to be named “The Thinkers,” because he did it again and again. It was a big hit and he was on the leading edge of turning art into commerce. I first got into him when I visited the Musee Rodin in Paris. It was a revelation. Until that time, all I’d really known about him was The Thinker and it isn’t really one of his best pieces. What really struck me at the time was The Kiss, but all the work was incredible. In later years, I’ve become a much bigger fan of The Age of Bronze.

Happy birthday Auguste Rodin!

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Its iconography is the best of any holiday. Oh the things you can do with some balloons, sheets, and a body suit! And what could be better: you get to give out candy to kids! My raison d’etre is to corrupt children in the way of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Unfortunately, where I now live, I get exactly one trick-or-treat kid. And as always, I give out totally awesome candy! What a waste.

On this day in 1795, the great Romantic poet John Keats was born. His technique was brilliant, but as usual, I do have a problem with what I see as the affected obsessions that the Romantics had with nature. Still, this “Sonnet VII” is quite pretty:

Other birthday: English diarist John Evelyn (1620); poet Natalie Clifford Barney (1876); painter Marie Laurencin (1883); chess grandmaster Alexander Alekhine (1892); the “Green Grocer” Joe Carcione (1914); Dan Rather (82); actor Michael Landon (1936); actor David Ogden Stiers (71); football player Brian Piccolo (1943); marathon runner Frank Shorter (66); comedian John Candy (1950); filmmaker Peter Jackson (52); and two actors are 50: Dermot Mulroney and fucktard Rob Schneider.

The day, however, and by a mile, belongs to the great Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer who was born on this day in 1632. He was a fabulous artist but during his lifetime, he was not thought to be anything special. When he died at 43, he left his family in debt. It was not for another two and a half centuries that anyone started to notice him. Until that time, many of his paintings where credited to other painters like Gabriel Metsu, Frans van Mieris, and Pieter de Hooch. I can understand the problem with Metsu, but not really the others. It shows how thoroughly Vermeer was dismissed that people just threw his work into the catalogs of painters that really weren’t all that similar.

It’s easy to wonder why such a great artist would not have been heralded throughout the known world. He was, after all, well known locally. So it must be that the beau monde just didn’t think there was anything special about his work. But that is often the case with artists. It isn’t that bad artists are acclaimed. But who exactly is considered a great painter or singer is usually a matter of the tastes of the time more than the absolute quality of the artist.

At this point, there are only 34 (some would say 35) paintings that we are certain are Vermeer’s. There are an equal number of paintings that are disputed but may be his. That’s not many paintings, even for his short life. Assuming his career lasted 22 years, that’s at best about 3 paintings per year. But his work does show a great deal of care. Look at the wonderful use of light in Girl with a Pearl Earring (and pretty much anything else he ever did):

Happy birthday Johannes Vermeer!