Frame by frame stories

The Time issue with Einstein on the cover is the first issue of our baby millennium, year 2000. (The right year to start the new millennium is 2001, but I'm not quibbling; I like the round figure better). I bough the magazine when it appeared very late in December 1999. When I saw the iconic Einstein photo by Philippe Halsman. In an episode of Pawn Star, a man offered a version of that photo, signed by Halsman, and framed beautifully. The man wanted $10,000 and Rick Harrison wanted to pay $5,000 tops. No deal. I thought, "If I had $10,000 I would have bought it. Then that frame would look good in one of the big rooms in my mansion -- if I had millions of dollars to buy a mansion." In 1966 March 14 the United Postal Service issued a postage stamp honoring Einsein. It's a purple Halsman.

 Einstein was named Person of the Century, edging out, by the grace of god, animals like Hitler and Lenin as one whose influence altered the world and changed for ever our view of the Universe: Time, he said,  is the fourth dimension without which objects and the space they occupy cannot be defined. Besides, his  long unruly hair


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