Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson) calculates orbital insertion trajectories for the Mercury program using Euler’s method in this scene from the movie Hidden Figures. Credit: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.
AL HARRISON:
You think we can get to the moon?[Katherine nods, with all the certainty in the world:]
KATHERINE:
We’re already there, sir.
— Hidden Figures (2016)
cf. Jakub Schikaneder, Company on the Terrace (1887)
cf. LIFE (1967)
One night when Beauclerk and Langton had supped at a tavern in London, and sat till about three in the morning, it came into their heads to go and knock up Johnson, and see if they could prevail on him to join them in a ramble. They rapped violently at the door of his chambers in the Temple, till at last he appeared in his shirt, with his little black wig on the top of his head, instead of a nightcap, and a poker in his hand, imagining, probably, that some ruffians were coming to attack him. When he discovered who they were, and was told their errand, he smiled, and with great good humour agreed to their proposal: ‘What, is it you, you dogs! I’ll have a frisk with you.’ He was soon drest, and they sallied forth together into Covent-Garden…They then repaired to one of the neighbouring taverns, and made a bowl of that liquor called Bishop, which Johnson had always liked; while in joyous contempt of sleep, from which he had been roused, he repeated the festive lines,
‘Short, O short then be thy reign,
And give us to the world again!’
They did not stay long, but walked down to the Thames, took a boat, and rowed to Billingsgate. Beauclerk and Johnson were so well pleased with their amusement, that they resolved to persevere in dissipation for the rest of the day…
—Boswell’s Life Of Johnson
Geo. R. Lawrence Co., “A tourist sleeper musical” (ca. 1905)
Dick Swanson, One Of The Bicyclists Holds Her Ears Against The Roar Of The Jet Taking Off From National Airport (1973)
I went from Phoenix, Arizona
All the way to Tacoma,
Philadelphia, Atlanta, L.A.
Northern California where the girls are warm,
So I could be with my sweet baby, yeah…
Lady Clementina Hawarden, Two Women on Porch (ca. 1862)
Left: Jo, La Belle Irlandaise, Gustave Courbet (1865–66)
Right: My Favourite Picture of All My Works. My Niece Julia, Julia Margaret Cameron (1867)
I just wanna watch the girls go by
It’s like poetry in motion
Against a hot summer sky
I’m in love at least every minute or two
Until the next time a girl walks by
I think I love her too
Oh I, I can’t help myself
But I just lose my head
Every time you see ’em walkin’ by…
John Sapiro 