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✈︎ Iceland ✈︎ Ireland ✈︎ Northern Ireland ✈︎ England ✈︎ France ✈︎ Croatia ✈︎ Austria ✈︎ Serbia
Kissing Fiaker / Vienna The Man-Horse relationship goes back many centuries in many parts of the world — for war, for farming, and also for controversial entertainment. Vienna is one of the global centers where tourism and horse carriages continue to be a beloved attraction, inspired by the 17th-century Paris where the Irish patron Saint…
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Elfriede Jelinek *X 20 1946 — The Life You Give
Elfriede Jelinek, born October 20, 1946, in Mürzzuschlag, Austria, is the novelist, playwright, and poet noted for her controversial works on gender relations, female sexuality, and popular culture. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004. Jelinek received her education in Vienna, where the combination of her academic studies with a rigorous program…
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Charles Ives *X 20 1874 — The Life You Give
Charles Ives, born Charles Edward Ives, October 20, 1874, in Danbury, Connecticut, U.S.A., is the significant composer known for a number of innovations that anticipated most of the later musical developments of the 20th century. Ives received his earliest musical instruction from his father, who was a bandleader, music teacher, and acoustician who experimented with…
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Emil Gilels *X 19 1916 — The Life You Give
Emil Gilels, born Emil Grigoryevich Gilels, Oct. 6 [Oct. 19, New Style], 1916, in Odessa, Ukraine, is the concert pianist admired for his superb technique, tonal control, and disciplined approach. Gilels began piano studies at age 6 and gave his first public concert in 1929 at age 13. In 1933 he gained top honours in…
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Chuck Berry *X 18 1926 — The Life You Give
Chuck Berry (born October 18, 1926, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., is the singer, songwriter, and guitarist who was one of the most popular and influential performers in rhythm-and-blues and rock-and-roll music in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. Raised in a working-class African American neighbourhood on the north side of the highly segregated city of…
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Klaus Kinski *X 18 1926 – The Life You Give
Klaus Kinski, born Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski on October 18 1926, in Zoppot, Germany [now Sopot, Poland] is the intense, eccentric actor who had a stage and film career of more than 40 years and who was best known for his riveting performances in the films of Werner Herzog. Kinski’s family moved from Poland to…
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Whenever I see a knitter
My beloved and sweet grandmother (*1899) was a knitter. Whenever I visited her, she spent the day knitting, reading, looking after her plants, and taking a nap, or two. And, because she was lefty, as I am, she took some time to teach me how to knit. Sadly, I did not retain the knitting she…
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Oscar Wilde *X 16 1854 — The Life You Give
Oscar Wilde, born Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, October 16, 1854, Dublin, Ireland, is the wit, poet, and dramatist whose reputation rests on his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and on his comic masterpieces Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). He was a spokesman for the late…
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Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan *X 13 1948 — The Life You Give
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, born Pervez Fateh Ali Khan, October 13, 1948, in Lyallpur [now Faisalabad], Pakistan, is the singer considered to have been one of the greatest performers of qawwali, a Sufi Muslim devotional music characterized by simple melodies, forceful rhythms, and energetic improvisations that encourage a state of euphoria in the listener. Nusrat’s…
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Paul Simon *X 13 1941 — The Life You Give
Paul Simon, born Paul Frederic Simon, October 13, 1941, in Newark, New Jersey, U.S.A., is the singer-songwriter who brought a highbrow sensibility to rock music. One of the most paradoxical figures in rock-and-roll history, Simon exemplified many of the principles against which the music initially reacted. From his first big hit, “The Sounds of Silence,”…
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Luciano Pavarotti *X 12 1935 — The Life You Give
Luciano Pavarotti, born October 12, 1935, in Modena, Italy, is the operatic lyric tenor who was considered one of the finest bel canto opera singers of the 20th century. Even in the highest register, his voice was noted for its purity of tone, and his concerts, recordings, and television appearances—which provided him ample opportunity to…














