Happy 131st, Al!

The sage of Lantzville alerts us to a celebration of Albert Einstein's birthday, this very day.  (In days of yore, it is believed, the Lantzville Kid played on the same line as Al in a Saskatchewan beer league.)  We must get a suitable card for Al; it is hard to find one that says "Congratulations! You're 131!"

They are celebrating appropriately at the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities.  This Jerusalem institution has put on display Einstein's original, handwritten manuscript of "A General Theory of Relativity."  Protection for the 46 pages is roughly the same as that accorded the Mona Lisa.

Vancouver Opera Association, having summoned the jam to stage "Nixon in China," might now consider a production of Philip Glass's "Einstein On the Beach."  And we all might jog out to the local DVD dream pharmacy to pick up a copy of the 1994 film "I.Q." which had Walter Matthau as Einstein.

Finally, before we present our closing doggerel, let us make clear that the P.D. panel has great admiration for the sculptures of Jacob Epstein, and views the writings of Gertrude Stein with awe and puzzlement.  So no negativity on our side, but we do like this old limerick:

"I don't like the family Stein.

There's Gert and there's Ep and there's Ein.

Gert's poems are bunk,

Ep's statues are junk,

And nobody understands Ein."