by Rex Wockner
National News Briefs
John Burnside, longtime partner of the late legendary gay activist Harry Hay, died Sept. 14 in San Francisco of brain cancer. He was 91.
Burnside was one of the founders of the gay group Radical Faeries as well as an activist, dancer and inventor.
He invented the teleidoscope and the Symmetricon.
A teleidoscope is a kaleidoscope that can form kaleidoscopic patterns of objects outside the instrument rather than only from items inside it. The Symmetricon allows the image of a kaleidoscope to be projected.
Symmetricon images were used in a number of Hollywood movies, including "Logan's Run," according to information provided by Burnside's friends.
