JINGLE JANGLED

Each year we greet December
Decked out in green and red.
We count the days ’til Christmas,
And dream of what’s ahead.

We picture happy moments —
The sights, the sounds, the smells —
But as the month progresses,
Our tension level swells.

Instead of just relaxing
And taking things in stride,
We structure every minute,
All knotted up inside.

We haul out wreaths and garlands
And fight with tangled lights.
We decorate our rooftops,
Despite our fear of heights.

We wander seven counties
To find the perfect tree —
A process that requires
A forestry degree.

We send out inkjet letters
To people far and near,
Recounting every detail
About our boring year.

We gobble mounds of candies,
Cakes, cookies, tarts and pies,
Which somehow seek out pathways
Directly to our thighs.

We hear our favorite carols
Five hundred thousand times.
(It almost makes a person
Appreciative of mimes.)

We sit around at parties
We’d rather not attend,
Conversing with the husband
Of our neighbor’s cousin’s friend.

We start exchanging presents
With folks we’ve barely met.
(“Gee, thanks, I’ve always wanted
A mini-ratchet set!”)

As Christmas Day approaches,
Sheer panic fills the air.
The malls are packed with shoppers,
All tearing out their hair.

But there’s another option —
Not gimmicks, or a trick.
Let’s take our inspiration
From jolly old St. Nick:

It’s giving, not receiving,
That matters most, we’re told.
The gifts of love and friendship
Cannot be bought or sold.

So give yourself a present —
Wrap up your Christmas stress,
And mail it off to Nowhere,
With no return address.

THE ZAPRUDER FILMS

When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in downtown Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, Abraham Zapruder was filming the scene from atop a concrete abutment overlooking the motorcade’s route. As many as eight other onlookers took home-movie footage or still photographs of the shooting, but Zapruder’s is the only film known to exist that captured the entire event. “The Zapruder Film” has been studied and debated for decades, inspiring scientific researchers and conspiracy theorists alike.

In a newly-stabilized version of Zapruder’s footage, two men clap
as President Kennedy’s limousine passes “The Umbrella Man”
and another man, who waves in the foreground.

Recently, through the use of computers, it has become possible to produce stabilized versions of the film — minimizing the distracting “home-movie jitter” of the original footage and smoothly tracking the movement of the President’s limousine, HERE. (WARNING: Graphic content)

By stabilizing the original footage in an entirely different manner, I have been able to shift the emphasis to the onlookers instead of the motorcade — eliminating the left-to-right panning motion of the camera and, essentially, presenting the footage in the form of seven separate and stationary “Zapruder Films.”

For the first time, we can clearly observe people clapping and waving, or calmly watching, as the motorcade moves past them. A young boy steps from between two adults to get a better view of the President’s limousine. A woman who has been walking toward the roadway makes a sudden turn away, just as the fatal bullet strikes the President. One man dives to the ground, while other onlookers begin to back away.

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A young boy steps to the side to get
a better view of the limousine.

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The woman on the right prepares
to photograph the President’s vehicle.

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A woman turns away suddenly as the President is fatally wounded.

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One man dives to the ground as Mrs. Kennedy
starts to climb onto the limousine’s trunk.

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Another group watches as a Secret Service agent
climbs onto the back of the limousine.

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A man and woman watch as the limousine starts to speed away.

JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY

I can’t be exactly sure when I did this drawing and the essay that accompanied it. But, based on my creative spelling (and the way I referred to “Nov. 22″ without specifying a year), I’d guess that I produced it within a few months of the Kennedy assassination in 1963. So, I would have been — nine, maybe? Something like that.

I’m not sure where I got my “facts.” Clearly, I can’t blame the Internet for my unique historical perspective. (Oh, yeah, that’s right — I was nine. Maybe we should think of our current Web-heavy information age as “The Nine-ification of America.”)

In case you can’t read my handwriting, here’s what I wrote:

John Fitzgerald Kennedy 1917-1963

President Kennedy was assasinated Nov. 22 while riding through Dallas, Texas. Mrs. Connally had just said to Mr. Kennedy, “You can’t say Dallas isn’t nice to you,” when the 3 fatal shots rang out. The first one hit the President in the head, the next went into Gov. Connaly’s arm, hand and leg and the next one went into the Presidents neck. Presedent Kennedy slumped into his wifes arms while she shouted “oh no”. Mrs. Kennedy crawled on the trunk of the motorcade, shouting for a secret service man. At this, the car sped off toward the hospital with the wounded president. He was pronounced dead at 1 p.m. that afternoon. Then, Sunday Lee Harvey Oswald, acused assasin of the president was shot in the lower abdomen as he was being taken from the jail. He was shot by Jack Rubenstein, a night club owner.

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

IWO JIMA REVISITED

My brother Eric told me about some interesting “twitchy stereoscopic photographs” that had been collected by Mental Floss blogger David K. Israel. (By the way, if you liked my Twitter-based “TWIPS” comics, you’ll enjoy Israel’s crowdsourced Web comic, “Twaggies”, which he launched in 2009.)

The so-called “twitchy” photos are based on stereoscopic images, which capture a single scene from two separate vantage points, just inches apart — in the same manner that our eyes and brain combine two slightly different perspectives to produce a 3D effect.

As Israel explains, it is possible to produce a simple animation by alternating between the left and right images of a stereoscopic image, “twitching ever so slightly from the minuscule difference in perspective. The resulting effect creates images that have a sense of depth and three dimensional quality to them, without the need for those annoying glasses.” Israel’s Mental Floss blog post presents a small collection of animated 3D images, including this one from Portland-based art director Matt Moore:

A few years back, I discovered a way to produce a true stereoscopic version of one of the most iconic photographs from World War II. The resulting image — which I wrote about for The Tampa Tribune and TBO.com — is the only historically authentic 3-D photo of the Iwo Jima flag-raising on Feb. 23, 1945.

After four days of staggering losses on the Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima, U.S. troops were in desperate need of a morale boost. Marine cinematographer Sgt. Bill Genaust and Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal stood side-by-side at the summit of Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi as five Marines and a Navy corpsman hoisted a wind-whipped American flag. A single frame from Genaust’s film freezes the action at precisely the same moment as Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph. By juxtaposing those two images, it is possible to produce a three-dimensional version of the Iwo Jima flag-raising.

A simple “animation” of those two images (below) clearly shows the different camera angles of the two photographers. Genaust stood to the right of Rosenthal, and shot the scene from a slightly higher elevation.

(In the famous Rosenthal photograph, Private First Class Rene Gagnon is barely visible on the far side of the flag pole; In the frame from Genaust’s film, Gagnon comes more fully into view. Also, because Rosenthal had taken a position that was somewhat lower than Genaust’s, the background of his famous image shows less of the island below Suribachi’s peak.)

If you have access to some traditional 3D glasses — the type with red and blue lenses — you can view the flag-raising photo as a stereoscopic image:

To learn how to view the image stereoscopically without 3D glasses, go HERE.

To read my story for The Tampa Tribune and TBO.com, go HERE.

CHARLIE CHAPLIN

GROUCHO MARX

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More winter snapshots (revised)

FIVE COUSINS