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Takeshi Kitano *I 18 1947 — The Life You Give
Kitano Takeshi, born January 18, 1947, in Tokyo, Japan, is the actor, director, writer, and television personality known for his dexterity with both comedic and dramatic material. Kitano was born into a working-class family in Tokyo. He planned to become an engineer but dropped out of college to enter show business in 1972. With his…
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Susan Sontag *I 16 1933 — The Life You Give
Susan Sontag (born January 16, 1933, New York, New York, U.S.—died December 28, 2004, New York) was an American intellectual and writer best known for her essays on modern culture. Sontag (who adopted her stepfather’s name) was reared in Tucson, Arizona, and in Los Angeles. She attended the University of California at Berkeley for one…
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Yukio Mishima *I 14 1925 — The Live You Give
Mishima Yukio, born Hiraoka Kimitake, January 14 1925 in Tokyo, Japan, was a prolific writer who is regarded by many critics as the most important Japanese novelist of the 20th century. Mishima was the son of a high civil servant and attended the aristocratic Peers School in Tokyo. During World War II, having failed to…
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“Parsifal” (Wagner) is completed on this day, 1882
The Poem Parzival, an epic poem, is one of the masterpieces of the Middle Ages, written between 1200 and 1210 in Middle High German by Wolfram von Eschenbach. This 16-book, 25,000-line poem is in part a religious allegory describing Parzival’s painful journey from utter ignorance and naïveté to spiritual awareness. The poem introduced the theme…
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Morton Feldman *I 12 1926 — The Life You Give
Morton Feldman, born on January 12 1926, in New York, N.Y., U.S.A., was an avant-garde composer. He studied composition with Wallingford Riegger and Stefan Wolpe. In the 1950s, much more influenced by Abstract Expressionist painters than by other composers, he began using a method of graphic notation that included such devices as indicating the length…
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Blixa Bargeld *I 12 1959 — The Life You Give
A powerfully influential figure in experimental and avant-garde rock, Blixa Bargeld is best known as one of the founders of the pioneering industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, as well as for his work with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Blixa Bargeld was born Christian Emmerich in the Friedenau quarter of Berlin, Germany on January 12,…
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Eva Hesse *I 11 1936 — The Life You Give
Eva Hesse created innovative sculptural forms using unconventional materials such as latex and fiberglass and gave minimal art organic, emotional, and kinetic features. She scorned good taste and the decorative, creating sculptures out of repeated units which embodied opposite extremes. These extremes were born from the extremes of her own life. Hesse is recognized as…
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Sherrill Milnes *I 10 1935 — The Life You Give
Sherrill Milnes was born on January 10, 1935, and grew up on a dairy farm in Downers Grove, Illinois. Despite a childhood devoted to daily chores, he took voice lessons and studied piano, violin, viola, double bass, clarinet, and tuba. But when it came time for college, he pursued pre-medical studies. After a year and…
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Rod Stewart *I 10 1945 — The Life You Give
Over the course of his career, Rod Stewart has been lauded as the finest singer of his generation; he’s written several songs that turned into modern standards; he’s sung with the Faces, who rivaled the Rolling Stones in their prime; and he’s had massive commercial success. He’s one of rock & roll’s best interpretive singers…
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Simone de Beauvoir *I 9 1908 — The Life You Give
Simone de Beauvoir, born Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir on January 9, 1908, in Paris, France, is the writer and feminist, a member of the intellectual fellowship of philosopher-writers who have given a literary transcription to the themes of existentialism. She is known primarily for her treatise Le Deuxième Sexe, 2 vol. (1949;…
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