Culture
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Antonio Stradivari *1644 — The Life You Give
Antonio Stradivari, born in 1644, in Cremona, Duchy of Milan, is the violin maker who brought the craft of violin-making to its highest pitch of perfection. Stradivari was still a pupil of Nicolò Amati in 1666 when he began to place his own label on violins of his making. These at first followed the smaller…
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Trisha Brown *XI 25 1936 — The Life You Give
Trisha Brown, born November 25, 1936, in Aberdeen, Washington, U.S.A, dancer and choreographer whose avant-garde and postmodernist work explores and experiments in pure movement, with and without the accompaniments of music and traditional theatrical space. Brown studied modern dance at Mills College in Oakland, California (B.A., 1958). Her style began developing after she met choreographer…
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Compay Segundo *XI 18 1907 — The Life You Give / La Vida Que Das
Lea la biografía en Castellano al fondo Compay Segundo was born Máximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz Telles on November 18, 1907, in Siboney, Cuba. He was a reputed Trova guitarist, singer, and composer of Cuba. Compay Segundo moved to Santiago de Cuba at the age of nine. The place is known as the birthplace of Cuba’s…
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Maria Montessori *VIII 31 1870 — The Life You Give
Maria Montessori, born August 31, 1870, in Chiaravalle, near Ancona, Italy, is the educator and originator of the educational system that bears her name. The Montessori system is based on belief in the creative potential of children, their drive to learn, and the right of each child to be treated as an individual. After graduating…
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Carl Linnaeus *V 23 1707 — The Life You Give
Carolus Linnaeus, born on May 23, 1707, in Råshult, Småland, Sweden, is the naturalist and explorer who was the first to frame principles for defining natural genera and species of organisms and to create a uniform system for naming them (binomial nomenclature). Linnaeus was the son of a curate and grew up in Småland, a…
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La guayusa
Ethiopia gave us coffee, Asia gave us tea, Argentina yerba mate, and the Amazonian rainforest, the guayusa.
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Maya Angelou *IV 4 1928 — The Life You Give
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson, on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., is the poet, memoirist, and actress whose several volumes of autobiography explore the themes of economic, racial, and sexual oppression. Although born in St. Louis, Angelou spent much of her childhood in the care of her paternal grandmother in rural…
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Aretha Franklin *March 25 1942 — The Life You Give
Aretha Franklin, born Aretha Louise Franklin, on March 25 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A., is the singer who defined the golden age of soul music of the 1960s. Franklin’s mother, Barbara, was a gospel singer and pianist. Her father, C.L. Franklin, presided over the New Bethel Baptist Church of Detroit, Michigan, and was a minister…
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Dario Fo *III 24 1926 — The Life You Give
Dario Fo, born March 24, 1926, in Leggiuno-Sangiano, Italy, is the avant-garde playwright, manager-director, and actor-mime who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997 though he often faced government censure as a theatrical caricaturist with a flair for social agitation. Fo’s first theatrical experience was collaborating on satirical revues for small cabarets and…
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A day in a shuar farm, for a chicken, rice, and sugar
When visiting a farm owned by the shuar, they ask that one brings a small contribution, consisting of a whole chicken, rice, and sugar. I understand this as a type of tradition in trade, as a form of gratitude, as a form of support for the farm, and, perhaps, mostly as a form of unity…
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felpudo
One may visit the zoo, and observe through a window, or enter the jungle and absorb the habitat. That seems like a fair comparison to how one may visit countries and cities. I like to absorb the habitat from within. An interest in the pursuit of gaining on perspective which neither includes nor excludes the…
Sila Blume 