Making it…
The San Mateo County Event Center (aka “behind where the old Bay Meadows was”) comes alive this weekend–whirls, clangs, roars, flame spouts… It’s this year’s Maker Faire— an event that your correspondent heartily recommends. Readers will see such delights as…
Playable Table-top Pong
“What would the classic game PONG be like, if it were liberated from the cathode ray tube? To find out, we constructed this ‘real world’ version that you can try.”
From Evil Mad Scientist Labs (whom readers will recall)
and…
(also known to readers) photo: Laughing Squid
and…
The Apocalypse Puppet Theater
“We shall perform “So I Married a Seamonster- The Sordid Tale of Capt. Smitty” upon our bicycle-drawn traveling puppet theater, The Apocalypse Stagecoach. This show features bunraku puppets, original songs, and our Sababtini column wave machine.”
And so much more! (Readers in other locales, check for events near you.)
As we prepare to be amazed, we might recall that it was on this date in 1536 that Ann Boleyn was beheaded, ostensibly for adultery, treason, and incest. Historians doubt the charges: while Ann had borne Henry VIII the daughter who would become England’s Queen Elizabeth I, three subsequent attempts at producing a male heir had resulted in miscarriage; at the time of Ann’s arrest and execution, Henry had already moved on to Jane Seymour.
Ironically (or, given the Tudor family karma, not), it was on this date 32 years later that Queen Elizabeth ordered the arrest of (her first cousin once removed) Mary, Queen of Scots.
