Born in 1949 – Slavoj Žižek, Slovenian sociologist, philosopher, and academic.
“The threat today is not passivity, but pseudo-activity, the urge to ‘be active’, to ‘participate’, to mask the Nothingness of what goes on.”
Previously: Eric Rohmer
Born in 1889 – Harry Clarke, Irish stained-glass artist and illustrator.
Above: A Clarke window depicting St. Patrick, (1925) St. Michael’s Church, Ballinasloe, County Galway, Ireland.
Born in 1903 – Adolph Gottlieb, American painter and sculptor.
Above: Gottlieb’s Dialogue I (1960)
1475 – Michelangelo, Italian painter and sculptor.
Pictured: Detail from the Sistine ceiling, The Fall and Expulsion of Adam and Eve.
Born in 1922 – Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italian director, screenwriter, and actor.
Above, a still from Pasolini’s film, The Gospel According to St. Matthew.
Born in 1678 – Antonio Vivaldi, Italian violinist and composer .
Above: "La primavera" from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, performed by Mathias Chanon Varreau.
Born in 1942 – Lou Reed, American poet and musician.
“The most important part of my religion is to play guitar.”
Previously: The Peace Corps was created.
Born in 1941 – Robert Hass, American poet.
Forty Something
She says to him, musing, “If you ever leave me,
and marry a younger woman and have another baby,
I’ll put a knife in your heart.” They are in bed,
so she climbs onto his chest, and looks directly
down into his eyes. “You understand? Your heart.”
Born in 1895 – Marcel Pagnol, French author, playwright and director.
Above: Still from Yves Robert’s 1990 film, My Father’s Glory, based on Pagnol’s autobiographical novel of the same name.
Born in 1902 – John Steinbeck, American journalist and author.
“Ain’t many guys travel around together…I don’t know why. Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other”
-Slim, in Steinbeck’s 1937 novella, Of Mice and Men.
Number 5 