The MiG-21 Project

 

Last month my younger son, Drew, and I spent a weekend in Seattle to attend a family-related memorial service.  During the non-family time one afternoon we visited the Museum of Flight south of downtown Seattle, and encountered an unexpected, amazing piece of art.

But first . . .

We took an early nonstop from Albuquerque to SeaTac, and with clear skies, low-angle morning light, and a window seat, I got some nice images of the rugged mountains about 80 miles southeast of Salt Lake City . . .

. . . and a great view of Mt. Ranier (and Mt. St. Helens in the distance) as we descended into the Seattle area:

After brunch at a snazzy, retro diner in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, we drove back down I-5 to the Museum of Flight at the King County Airport, a few miles north of SeaTac.  Drew and I had visited the museum on a previous trip to Seattle -- you can read about that visit here.  On that visit, the Aviation Pavilion, a major section section of the museum housed in a covered open-air structure, was closed.  Fortunately, on this visit it was open, and we spent most of our time there.

Photo from the Museum of Flight website

The Aviation Pavilion houses 19 rare and unique commercial and military aircraft, including the first jet-powered Air Force One (a Boeing 707); the Boeing 727 (complete with a description of the legend of D.B. Cooper); the 737, 747, and the 787 Dreamliner, as well as the only Concorde on the West Coast.

Needless to say, the size and placement of the aircraft, coupled with the pavilion's mix of light and shadows, were not ideal conditions for photography.

Among the military aircraft are a B-29 and a B-17 (the latter the subject of the anti-war poem "The Death of the Ball-Turret Gunner" which you can read here).  You can see the ball-turret on the underside of this B-17, just to the left of the lower propeller blade of the engine in the foreground of this image.  

I was visually fascinated by the cowling and blades of the Rolls-Royce turbofan engines that power the 787.

But tucked away behind the 747 and 787, at the farthest end of the pavilion, was a very unusual aircraft:  a Russian MiG-21 fighter jet completely covered in a riot of colorful patterns.

The patterns are not painted on; they are made of tens of millions of tiny beads covering virtually every square inch of the plane.

The armaments . . .

. . . the wheels . . .

. . . even the inside of the engine exhaust nozzle . . .

. . . are all wrapped with beads!

The decorations are the brainchild of South African artist Ralph Ziman.  The aircraft is the centerpiece of a 5-year, multidisciplinary project transforming a decommissioned, Cold War-era, Soviet-designed MiG-21 jet fighter into a work of art.  

"The aim of the MiG-21 Project," according to Ziman, "is to take the most mass-produced supersonic fighter aircraft and turn it from a machine of war into something that looks beautiful, changing the meaning of it."

In addition to the decorated jet, Ziman and his team created "Afrofuturistic flight suits" with custom regalia made from objets trouvés and repurposed parts of the MiG to complement the beaded jet.  The costumes are described in the exhibit as "whimsical" and "playful," but to me they appeared threatening and dangerous, perhaps due to how they were displayed -- inside plexiglass cases in a very dark room -- or perhaps due to how they conjured contemporary images of ICE stormtroopers.

Notwithstanding all that, the beaded jet became my "teacup" for the trip (IYKYK).  I walked around it more than once, and made over 150 images of the plane.  Here are some of my favorite views:

You can read more about the MiG-21 Project, and see a fascinating video of how the bead coverings were created -- a long and painstaking process -- by clicking here.

Of course, I couldn't leave the museum without taking a picture of our favorite aircraft:  the SR-71, this time poised above the museum floor set up for a large private event.

On the flight back to Albuquerque, I captured another great view of Mt. Ranier (with Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood in the distance); the Cascades of Washington state; a Delta Airlines 757 flying below us above the Great Salt Lake coming in for a landing in Salt Lake City; and the confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers in Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah.

View looking SW; Colorado River comes in from the bottom of the image; Green River from right.

Enjoy!

Finding Henry: The Right One This Time

Back in August I shared the story of my trip to Los Angeles in 1965 to attend the national convention of high school Latin Clubs, and how the winner of the Latin oratory contest made a big impression on me -- so big that I set out to find him or what happened to him in the intervening sixty years.  You can read that story here.

Not long after that, with the help of a good friend, I found a person who seemed to fit the description, so I posted another story about finding that speaker, Henry Stevenson.  You can read that story here.

But as good as the evidence seemed to be, something just didn't feel right about the identification.  The owner of a commercial sewing machine store who died in a small town in Missouri in 2009 didn't seem consistent with my (admittedly youthful and idealistic) expectations for the life of a prize-winning orator at a national Latin Club convention.

Meanwhile, another long-time friend -- a librarian in Boston -- suggested that I check to see if the high school Henry Stevenson attended had a current Facebook page.  Many high schools do, primarily to keep in touch for reunion purposes.

From the original search, I knew what high school he attended, and there was, indeed a Facebook page for its alumni, so I posted an ISO (in search of) message on the page.  The first person to respond said they thought he was a judge in New York, and was still alive, but didn't have any contact information.

The second person to respond also said Stevenson had been a judge and was still listed as a lawyer in New York City, and gave me his full name:  Henry Everett Stevenson.  He also told me that Stevenson went to Cornell Law School.  

With that additional information, I re-started my internet search.  It didn't take long to find multiple listings for a New York lawyer named Henry Stevenson who attended Cornell Law.  Bingo!

A couple of the online listings provided a street address and a phone number, so I took the most direct approach and called the number.  A male voice answered; I identified myself and said I was looking for a Henry Stevenson from Baytown, Texas.  He said, "You found him."

I explained why I had tracked him down: (a) to find out what had become of him since 1965; and (b) to tell him how affected I was by his oration.

He said that after high school he went to Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania for two years, then realized that there were better places to get an education.  So he transferred to Yale (a better place indeed!), and afterwards went on to law school at Cornell.  He was admitted to the New York bar in 1975 and became an administrative law judge for the State of New York, hearing cases before various state agencies.  He retired as a senior judge in 2021.

When I told him how impressed I was by his oration, he explained that he had not written it himself, but that it was the story of Daedalus and Icarus from Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book 8, ll. 183-235).  He said he had been on the debate team in high school, which competed in the Houston area, and he learned a lot about public speaking from watching the better teams, so he incorporated much of what he learned in terms of speaking dynamics and gestures into his oration performance.  Clearly, it worked.  Not only did he win first place at the 1965 convention; he took the same speech to the Latin Club convention the following year (1966) and won first prize there too!

Then he remarked, "To this day, I can still recite that speech."  I hesitated for just a moment -- you know what I was thinking -- and then said, "Would you do some of it for me now?"  He said "Sure," and launched into it.

He did about two minutes of the speech.  I couldn't see any gestures or body language on the phone, but his pacing, rhythms, and dynamics were all there, just like they were sixty years ago.  It gave me chills and tears.

We chatted a bit more -- family and career stuff -- and then I asked him if he would send me a picture because I wanted to do a follow-up blog post now that I had found him.  He agreed. 

So here he is, at long last, the right Henry Everett Stevenson.  Macte virtute sic itur ad astra!