Have a Moon Day party Wed 7/20/05, share snapshots!

My friends Michael and Cynthia Perry sent out an invitation to pals for a geek gathering at their home in LA tomorrow. Sans personal info, it reads:

This Wednesday marks the thirty-sixth anniversary of mankind's greatest peacetime achievement, landing two human beings safely on the moon, before returning them safely to earth.

We're going to mark the occasion at our home with friends, Tang, cake and Moon Pies (if we can get Moon Pies). We'll also set up a telescope. We'd love it if you could join us.

If you can't come, please remember to look up at the moon this Wednesday night and think about how unlikely it is that once, long ago, humans set foot there.

What a cool idea! I asked Michael if it was okay to share this with Boing Boing readers, and invite other folks having "Moon Day parties" in other parts of the world to share snapshots (I set up a Flickr photo pool here for this purpose). Michael replied:

Sure, of course, I seriously believe it should be a national holiday and encourage everyone everywhere to reflect for a moment what we did "for all mankind".

We've been doing Moon Day celebrations of some sort or another since 1993; that year we re-enacted the descent from the lander to the surface of the moon on the front lawn of Griffith Observatory, with a foil-covered ladder and a boom box. Of course it was totally without permits or permission.

Another year I stood with some friends at the intersection of Hollywood & Vine (where the Apollo Astronauts have their names on the walk of fame) and passed out Tang to tourists and waved signs that said "Make Moon Day a Holiday" and "Honk if You've Been to the Moon."

Link to MoonDayParty flickr photo pool, Link to NASA website on Project Apollo, and the first lunar landing by astronauts Neil Alden Armstrong and Dr. Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. Here's the Wikipedia entry. Here's one archive of related media.

Image: Buzz Aldrin poses on the Moon allowing Neil Armstrong to photograph both of them using the visor's reflection.