Eminent Births
My mom, idly glancing at someone's wall calendar one time, observed that Joan Baez and Nixon were born the same day, remarking, "Well, I guess that pretty effectively throws astrology out the window." Catalogues of famous birthdays always juxtapose transcendent artists with vile celebrities and moral monsters and omit all the more obscure of essential icons. They'll have Richard Nixon & Hitler and leave out Elena Guro and Taban Lo Liyong. And so they always mask the mysterious thread of commonality...
January
1 radical, rhythm, heartstrings
Haiti 1804
J.D. Salinger '19
Milt Jackson '23
Max Roach '24
Camara Laye '28
Joe Orton '33
Country Joe McDonald '42
Jaco Pastorius '51
2 explicit, informative, self-conscious
Isaac Asimov '20
Lynda Barry '49
Christopher Durang '49
Cuba Gooding, Jr. '68
3 accurate, delicate, deadly
Marcus Tullius Cicero 103 b.c.
Lucretia Mott 1793
Henry Handel Richardson 1870
J.R.R.Tolkein 1892
Ray Milland '08
Victor Borge '09
Steve Stills '45
4 a gift
Louis Braille 1809
Augustus John 1878
C.L.R. James '01
Sterling Holloway '05
Floyd Patterson '35
John McLaughlin '42
5 stirring, disturbing, gratifying
Nicolas de Staël '14
George Reeves '14
Friedrich Dürrenmatt '21
Alvin Ailey '31
Robert Duvall '31
Ngugi wa Thiong'o '38
6 soul extremity
Jeanne d'Arc 1412
Gustave Doré 1832
Jacobo Timerman '23
7 a certain touch
Zora Neal Hurston 1891
Charles Addams '12
Jean-Pierre Rampal '22
8 seriously subversive & subversively beautiful
Butterfly McQueen '11
Soupy Sales '26 ('30)
Elvis Presley '35
Shirley Bassey '37
Yvette Mimieux '39 ('41)
Stephen Hawking '42
David Bowie '47
9 the penetrating solo
Karel Capek 1890
Simone de Beauvoir '08
Joan Baez '41
Jimmy Page '44
10 sweetness & strength
George Washington Carver 1864
Maurice Collis 1889
Barbara Hepworth '03
Ray Bolger '04
Max Roach '24
Sal Mineo '39
George Foreman '49
Pat Benatar '53
11 talk about serious
William James 1842
Alice Paul 1885
Alan Paton '03
Eva Hesse '36
12 in yore face
Jack London 1876
Dominique Wilkins '60
Howard Stern '54
13 a wicked pleasure
Charles Perrault 1628
Miriam Likelike 1851
Gwen Verdon '25 ('26) see 1/16
14 no laughing matter
Alexander Griboyedov 1795
Berthe Morisot 1841
Hal Roach 1892
Mishima Yukio '25
Faye Dunaway '41
15 no stopping them
Molière 1622
Osip Mandelstam 1891
Martin Luther King '29
Queen Ida '29
Ernest Gaines '33
Captain Beefheart '41
16 will eat you alive, but you don't mind
Eleanor Marx 1855
Robert W. Service 1874
Ethel Merman '08
Gwen Verdon '25 see 1/13
Allard Lowenstein '29
Sade '59
Kate Moss '74
17 irrepressable, sadly
Ben Franklin 1706
Anne Bronte 1820
Eartha Kitt '27 ('28)
James Earl Jones '31
Françoise Hardy '41
Muhummed Ali '42
Andy Kaufman '49
Jim Carrey '62
18 a stitch
Oliver Hardy 1892
Cary Grant '04
Danny Kaye '13
19 happily broken-hearted
Edgar Allan Poe 1809
Paul Cezanne 1839
Richard Lester '32
George MacBeth '32
Janis Joplin '42
Dolly Parton '46
20 you talkin to me
Federico Fellini '20
Patricia Neal '26
21 generous, unstoppable
Roger Baldwin 1884
Paul Scofield '22
Richie Havens '41
Hakeem Olajuwon '59
22 straight to the heart
Lord Byron 1788
August Strindberg 1849
Sam Cooke '35
John Hurt '40
Jim Jarmusch '53
23 brutally exact
Stendahl 1783
Antonio Gramsci 1891
Randolph Scott 1898
Django Reinhardt '10
Ernie Kovacs '19
Jeanne Moreau '28
Derek Walcott '30
24 enveloping, provocative
Edith Wharton 1862
Robert Motherwell '15
Maria Tallchief '25
Doug Kershaw '36
Aaron Neville '41
John Belushi '49
Nastassia Kinski '60
25 sassy, huge
Robert Burns 1759
Virginia Woolf 1882
William C. Bullitt 1891
Corazon Aquino '33
26 handsome behavior
Bessie Coleman 1893
Peter Lorre '04 (see 6/26)
Paul Newman '25
Jules Feiffer '29
Scott Glenn '42
27 an angel
W.A.Mozart 1756
Elmore James '18
Mikhail Baryshnikov '48
28 relentless, with laughter
Colette 1873
Vsevolod Meyerhold 1874
Jackson Pollock '12
Claes Oldenburg '29
Susan Sontag '33
29 attentive and encyclopedic
Emmanuel Swedenborg 1688
Thomas Paine 1737
Anton Chekhov 1860
Leadbelly 1885
Germaine Greer '39
Oprah Winfrey '54
30 large-souled
Franklin Roosevelt 1882
Barbara Tuchman '12
Richard Braughtigan '33
Vanessa Redgrave '37
31 gotcha
Thomas Merton '15
Jackie Robinson '19
Charlie Musselwhite '44
Minnie Driver '71
February
1 liberation
Yevgeny Zamyatin 1884
Langston Hughes '02
Roger Price '33
2 you jest
Marie Laveau 1794
James Joyce 1882
James Stephens 1882
James Blood Ulmer '42
3 hermetic and personal
Gertrude Stein 1874
Simone Weil '09
Shelley Berman '26
4 unassuming radical ladies
Rosa Parks '13
Betty Friedan '21
Alice Cooper '48
5 gratefully capable, killer
William S. Burroughs '14
Hank Aaron '34
Charlotte Rampling '45
Jennifer Jason Leigh '62
6 subversive, persuasive
Christopher Marlowe 1564
Pramoedya Toer '25
Rip Torn '31
François Truffaut '32
Bob Marley '45
7 discursive, sly
Thomas More 1478
Charles Dickens 1812
Laura Ingalls Wilder 1867
Chris Rock '66
8 subtle, conclusive
Jules Verne 1828
Kate Chopin 1851
Martin Buber 1878
Elizabeth Bishop '11
Audrey Meadows '24
9 no fucking around
Brendan Behan '23
Carol King '42
Alice Walker '44
10 delicate iron
Boris Pasternak 1890
Jimmy Durante 1893
Roberta Flack '39
Donovan '46
11 tell me
Flo Kennedy '16
Kim Stanley '25
12 a contained riot
Abe Lincoln 1809
Eugene Atget 1857
Max Beckmann 1884
Alice Roosevelt Longworth 1884
Bill Russell '34
Judy Blume '38
Arsenio Hall '55
Christina Ricci '80
13 sharp, soft
Kate Roberts 1891
Kim Novak '33
Carol Lynley '42
14 mercilessly merciful
Frederic Douglass 1817
Jack Benny 1894
Meg Tilly '60
15 seriously insightful
Galileo Gallilei 1564
Susan B. Anthony 1820
Sam Rodia 1875
Claire Bloom '31
Susan Brownmiller '35
John Trudell '46
Matt Groening '54
16 incisive contrarian
Nikolai Leskov 1831
Henry Adams 1838
Ice-T '58
John McEnroe '59
17 harmony, liberation
Arcangelo Corelli 1653
Fyodor Sologub 1863
Ruth Rendell '30
Alan Bates '34
Jim Brown '36
18 where true value lies
Sholom Aleichem 1859
Nikos Kazantzakis 1883
Andre Breton 1896
Toni Morrison '31
Audre Lorde '34
19 compulsive, beguiling, shocking
Nicolaus Copernicus 1473
Carson McCullers '17
Lee Marvin '24
Smokey Robinson '40
Seal '63
20 forthright, gorgeous
Ansel Adams '20
Sydney Poitier '27
Nancy Wilson '37
Buffy Sainte-Marie '41
Charles Barkley '63
Kurt Cobain '67
21 counterintuitive
Raymond Queneau '03
Anais Nin '03
W.H. Auden '07
Nina Simone '33
22 improbable
Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892
Luis Buñuel 1900
Jane Bowles '17
Edward Gorey '25
Ishmael Reed '38
Julius Erving '63
23 powerful, exhaustive, sublime
George Frederic Handel 1685
W.E.B. DuBois 1868
Johnny Winter '44
24 perfection of style
Enrico Caruso 1873
Nicky Hopkins '44
Edward James Olmos '47
Steve Jobs '55
25 a touching melancholy
Pierre Auguste Renoir 1841
Elma Farnsworth '08
Tom Courtenay '37
George Harrison '43
26 daring heart
Buffalo Bill Cody 1846
Theodore Sturgeon '18
Fats Domino '28
Godfrey Cambridge '33
Mitch Ryder '45
27 intensely intelligent & humane
Marian Anderson 1897
Lawrence Durrell '12
Dexter Gordon '23
Ralph Nader '34
Chelsea Clinton '80
28 smart, seductive
Michel de Montaigne 1533
Ben Hecht 1894
Zero Mostel '15
John Fahey '39
Brian Jones '42
Bernadette Peters '48
29 tenderness and power
Antonio Rossini 1792
Dee Brown '08
Gretchen Christopher '40
March
1 thorough, sweet
Frederic Chopin 1810
Ralph Ellison '14
Harry Belefonte '27
2 mordant, compassionate
Multatuli 1820
Dr. Seuss '04
Doc Watson '23
Lou Reed '44
3 getting personal
Francisco Goya 1746
Alain 1868
Alan Sillitoe '28
John Astin '30
4 supernatural rhythm
Antonio Vivaldi 1678
Miriam Makeba '32
Ryszard Kapucinski '32
5 prophet, martyr
Rosa Luxemburg 1871
Pier Paolo Pasolini '22
J.B. Lenoir '29
Leslie Silko '48
6 ornate simplicity
Michelangelo 1475
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806
Bob Wills '05
Stanislaw Lec '06
Donald Davidson '17
Gabriel Garcia Marquez '28
Flora Purim '42
7 dream architect
Tomas Masaryk 1850
Piet Mondrian 1872
8 angels with no fear to tread
Harriet Tubman 1828
Lynn Redgrave '43
9 smouldering silk
Samuel Barber 1910
Irene Papas '26
John Cale '42
10 pioneer
Bix Beiderbecke '03
11 sublime romance
Torquato Tasso 1544
Nina Hagen '55
12 androgynous silk & power
Vaslav Nijinsky 1889
William 'Buckwheat' Thomas '31
Al Jarreau '40
13 darkness & delicacy
Janet Flanner 1892
George Seferis '16
William H. Macy '50
14 light amidst darkness
Georg Philipp Telemann 1681
Albert Einstein 1879
Jacques Lacan '01
Adolph Gottlieb '03
Akira Yoshizawa '11
Diane Arbus '23
John Wain '25
Michael Caine '33
15 slick, fast, funky, soulful
Lightnin Hopkins '12
Philippe de Broca '33
Sly Stone '44
Ry Cooder '47
16 focused & engaged
Marie de La Fayette 1634
Bernardo Bertolucci '41
Jerry Jeff Walker '42
17 warm steel
Bayard Rustin '10
Nat King Cole '19
Rudolph Nureyev '38
Mia Hamm '72
18 passion, witness
Wilfred Owen 1893
Frank Capra 1897
Wilson Pickett '41
Irene Cara '59
Queen Latifah '70
19 exquisitely pointed
Albert Pinkham Ryder 1847
Lennie Tristano '19
Ornette Coleman '30
Glenn Close '47
20 staging small conflicts
Ovid 43 b.c.
Nikolai Gogol 1809
Henrik Ibsen 1828
Spike Lee '57
21 radical perfectionist
Johann Sebastian Bach 1685
Hans Hofmann 1880
Peter Brook '25
22 a serious mask
Aphra Behn 1640
Chico Marx 1887
Agnes Martin '12
Marcel Marceau '23
23 violently sublime
Juan Gris 1887
Akira Kurasawa '10
Chaka Khan '53
24 implicitly explicit
Olive Schreiner 1855
Harry Houdini 1874
Edward Weston 1886
Wilhelm Reich 1897
Lidia Chukovskaya '07
Steve McQueen '30
25 convolute simplicity
Bela Bartok 1881
Flannery O'Conner '25
Simone Signoret '21
Hoyt Axton '38
Toni Cade Bambara '39
Aretha Franklin '42
Elton John '47
Susie Bright '58
26 trailblazer
John W. Campbell '04
Tennessee Williams '11
Rufus Thomas '17
Sandra Day O'Connor '30
Diana Ross '44
27 cool, incisive, emotional
Sarah Vaughan '24
David Jansson '31
Quentin Tarantino '63
28 sharp, down-to-earth
Nelson Algren '09
Bohumil Hrabal '14
Dirk Bogarde '21
Diane Wiest '48
29 sneaky grandstander
Pearl Bailey '18
Eric Idle '43
Earl Campbell '55
30 control, color, improvisation
Paul Verlaine 1844
Vincent Van Gogh 1853
Astrud Gilberto '40
31 open the gates
Rene Descartes 1596
Andrew Marvell 1621
Franz Josef Haydn 1732
Andrew Lang 1844
Jack Johnson 1878
Kornei Chukovsky 1882
Octavio Paz '14
Zoe Oldenbourg '16
Cesar Chavez '27
Pat Leahy '40
Christopher Walken '43
April
1 commanding, charming
Alberta Hunter 1895
Toshiro Mifune '20
Wangari Muta Maathai '40
2 cool, direct, touching
Emile Zola 1840
Max Ernst 1891
Alec Guinness '14
Marvin Gaye '39
Leon Russell '41
Linda Hunt '45
Camille Paglia '47
3 jazzy virtuoso
Herb Caen '16
Marlon Brando '24
Charlotte Coleman '68
4 outrageous, melodic
Marguerite Duras '14
Muddy Waters '15
Maya Angelou '28
Robert Downey, Jr. '65
5 conveying a love of justice
Pasquale Paoli 1725
Booker T. Washington 1856
Gregory Peck '16
6 magic, daring
Raphael 1483
Harry Houdini 1874
Leonora Carrington '17
Gerry Mulligan '27
Ivan Dixon '31
7 melancholy, liberation
Marie Equi 1872
Gabriela Mistral 1889
Billie Holiday '15
Jackie Chan '54
8 specialist & generalist, orthodox & unorthodox
Buddha 568 b.c.
Edmund Husserl 1859
Carmen McRae '22
Kofi Annan '38
9 screaming & laughing (note the pauls)
Charles Baudelaire 1821
Paul Robeson 1898
Ernst Neizvestny '25
Paule Marshall '29
Jean-Paul Belmondo '33
Tom Lehrer '38
Paul Krassner '42
10 break the mold
Anna Kavan '01
Max Von Sydow '29
11 heart-breaker, iconoclast
Attila József '05
Louise Lasser '39
12 lucid, meticulous
Imogen Cunningham 1883
Lionel Hampton '13
Beverly Cleary '16
Mwandishi Herbie Hancock '40
Claire Danes '79
13 a towering original
Thomas Jefferson 1743
James Ensor 1860
Nella Larson 1891
Samuel Beckett '06
Eudora Welty '09
Howard Keel '19
Al Green '46
14 shrimpy majesty
John Gielgud '04
Iggy Pop '47
15 compromise/no compromise
Leonardo Da Vinci 1452
Henry James 1843
A. Philip Randolph 1889
Bessie Smith 1894
Thomas Szasz '20
Claudia Cardinale '38
Emma Thompson '59
16 disciplined, revolutionary
Charlie Chaplin 1889
Tristan Tzara 1896
Merce Cunningham '19
Peter Ustinov '21
Dusty Springfield '39
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar '47
17 storyteller, deceptively simple
William Holden '18
Lindsay Anderson '23
Cynthia Ozick '28
18 smartass
Clarence Darrow 1857
László Németh '01
James Woods '47
Rick Moranis '53
Conan O'Brien '63
19 rebel witness
Richard Hughes 1900
Etheridge Knight '31
20 fine & certain lines
Joan Miro 1893
Jessica Lange '49
21 sharp, with a sad edge
Charlotte Bronte 1816
Elaine May '32
Andy McDowell '58
22 kaleidoscopic tour de force
Madame De Staël 1766
Ellen Glasgow 1874
Vladimir Nabokov 1899
Charles Mingus '22
Richard Diebenkorn '22
23 enter another world
William Shakespeare 1565
J.M.W. Turner 1775
Serge Prokoviev 1891
J.P. Donleavy '26
Guillermo Cabrera Infante '29
Roy Orbison '36
24 stirring, sophisticated insight
Willem De Kooning '04
Robert Penn Warren '05
25 wit, art, chops
Ella Fitzgerald '18
Albert King '23
Meadowlark Lemon '32
Hank Azaria '64
26 reality
Ma Rainey 1886
Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889
South Africa 1994
27 fleeting, steady
Mary Wollstonecraft 1759
C. Day Lewis '04
Coretta Scott King '27
Sandy Dennis '37
28 influential, truth-telling
Karl Krauss 1874
Kurt Gödel '06
Harper Lee '26
29 smooth, syncopated
Duke Ellington 1894
John Waters '46
Yusef Komunyakaa '47
Michelle Pfeiffer '55
30 intuitive, sneaky, soulful
Jaroslav Hasek 1883
John Crowe Ransom 1888
Willie Nelson '33
Isiah Thomas '61
May
1 bright & wrenching yarnspinning
Mother Jones 1830
Calamity Jane Canary 1852
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 1881
Aleksander Wat 1900
Ignazio Silone 1900
Joseph Heller '23
Terry Southern '24
Little Walter '30
Judy Collins '39
Rita Coolidge '45
2 exacting, emotional
Benjamin Spock '03
Satyijat Ray '21
Roscoe Lee Browne '25
Leslie Gore '46
3 testify
Mikhail Bulgakov 1891
May Sarton '12
Pete Seeger '19
John Lewis '20
Sugar Ray Robinson '21
James Brown '33
4 little messages
Jane Jacobs '16
Audrey Hepburn '29
Keith Haring '58
5 bright questioning
Søren Kierkegaard 1813
Olaf Stapledon 1886
6 versatile, pyrotechnic teacher
Andre Weil '06
Randall Jarrell '14
Willie Mays '31
7 classical, perfectionist
Johannes Brahms 1833
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala '27
Angela Carter '40
Sun Ra '14
8 serious humanist & gatherer
Edmund Wilson 1895
Robert Johnson '11
Gary Snyder '30
9 unsparing sympathy
John Brown 1800
Pancho Gonzalez '28
Albert Finney '36
Glenda Jackson '37
10 makes it look simple
Ivan Cankar 1876
Fred Astaire 1891
Donovan '46
Sid Vicious '57
11 eureka
King Oliver '85
Martha Graham 1894
Salvador Dali '04
Phil Silvers '12
Richard Feynman '18
Mort Sahl '27
Stanley Elkin '30
12 rare wit
Dante 1265
Edward Lear 1812
George Carlin '37
Andre Amalrik '38
13 string of triumphs
Georges Braque 1882
Joe Louis '14
Bruce Chatwin '40
Mary Wells '43
Stevie Wonder '50
Dennis Rodman '61
14 riffer, pioneer
Sidney Bechet 1897
David Byrne '52
Tim Roth '61
15 unreal?
L. Frank Baum 1856
Katherine Ann Porter 1894
Richard Avedon '23
Ralph Steadman '36
16 direct/indirect
Studs Terkel '12
Adrienne Rich '29
Billy Cobham '44
Janet Jackson '66
17 say it all
Dorothy Richardson '73
Taj Mahal '42
18 very deadpan, mercurial
Bertrand Russell 1872
Frank Capra 1897
Margot Fonteyn '19
Chow Yun-Fat '55
19 the mighty
Malik El Hajj Shabazz (Malcolm X) '25
Lorraine Hansberry '30
Pete Townsend '45
Grace Jones '52
20 life and death
Honoré De Balzac 1799
John Stuart Mill 1806
Sigrid Undset 1882
21 create & reform
Albrecht Dürer 1471
Henri Rousseau 1844
Andre Sakharov '21
Robert Creely '26
22 earnest simplicity
Mary Cassatt 1844
Arthur Conan Doyle 1859
Jean Tinguely '25
Morrissey '59
23 a lifter-upper
Thomas Hood 1799
Margaret Fuller 1810
Scatman Crothers '10
Barbara Ward '14
24 get out
Tommy Chong '38
Bob Dylan '41
Patti LaBelle '44
Larry Blackmon '56
Joe Dumars '63
25 felicity, facility, hermetic insight
Alexander Pope 1688
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803
Bill Bojangles Robinson '78
Dorothea Lange 1895
Theodore Roethke '08
Miles Davis '26
Lauryn Hill '75
26 gentle but audacious authority
Isadora Duncan 1878
Robert Morley '08
Jay Silverheels '19
Lawson Fusao Inada '38
27 subversive excitement
Julia Ward Howe 1819
Dashiel Hammett 1894
Rachel Carson '07
Lou Gossett, Jr. '36
Siouxie '55
28 give it everything
Edvard Benes 1884
Jim Thorpe 1888
Gladys Knight '44
John Fogarty '45
29 wishful thinkers
Patrick Henry 1736
T.H. White '06
Jack Kennedy '17
30 otherworldly poet
Paul Verlaine 1844
Mel Blanc '08
Keir Dullea '36
31 lyrical, peripatetic
Walt Whitman 1819
St.-John Perse 1887
Julian Beck '25
June
1 say no more
Murray Jarvik '23
Marilyn Monroe '26
Morgan Freeman '37
2 won't let go
Thomas Hardy 1840
Barbara Pym '13
Stacy Keach '41
Charlie Watts '41
3 lyrical cartoons
Raul Dufy 1877
Josephine Baker '06
Allen Ginsberg '26
Curtis Mayfield '42
Suzi Quatro '50
4 you won't know what hit you
Dr. Ruth Westheimer '28
Bruce Dern '36
Angelina Jolie '75
5 overwhelming
Pancho Villa 1878
Federico Garcia Lorca 1899
Margaret Drabble '39
Laurie Anderson '50
6 no compromise, awfully human
Aleksandr Pushkin 1799
Robert Falcon Scott 1868
Gary U.S. Bonds '39
Sandra Bernhard '55
Bjorn Borg '56
7 will save you & slay you
Paul Gaugin 1848
Imre Nagy 1896
Gwendolyn Brooks '17
Harry Crews '35
Prince '58
8 consummate, courtly
George Kirby '23
Boz Scaggs '44
9 consummate
Jackie Wilson '34
10 courtly
Louis Couperus 1863
Howlin Wolf '10
Judy Garland '22
11 guarded, revealing
Julia Cameron 1815
Gerard Manly Hopkins 1844
Jeanette Rankin 1880
Elizabeth Cotton 1892
Yasunari Kawabata 1899
Erving Goffman '22
Athol Fugard '32
Gene Wilder '35
12 brave, indelible
Djuna Barnes 1892
Milovan Djilas '11
Anne Frank '29
Brigid Brophy '29
Chick Corea '41
13 all-enveloping, brilliant
Fanny Burney 1752
William Butler Yeats 1865
Fernando Pessoa 1888
Christo '35
14 violently intimate
Harriet Beecher Stowe 1811
Burl Ives '09
Jerzy Kosinski '33
Boy George '61
15 a view from a great height
Saul Steinberg '14
Errol Garner '21
Mario Cuomo '32
Ice Cube '69
16 chameleon, mercurial
Stan Laurel 1890
Stim Bullitt '19
Joyce Carol Oates '38
Tupac Shakur '71
17 go their own way
James Weldon Johnson 1871
M.C. Escher 1898
Galina Ustvolskaya '19
Venus Williams '80
18 incisive, indefatigable
E.G. Marshall '10
Richard Boone '17
Aida Portalatin '18
Donald Keene '22
Isabella Rossellini '52
Carol Kane '52
19 transformer
Blaise Pascal 1623
Pauline Kael '19
Amos Tutuola '20
Gena Rowlands '30
20 killer fun
Charles Chesnutt 1858
Lillian Hellman '05
Audie Murphy '24
Stephen Frears '41
John Goodman '52
Cyndi Lauper '53
21 feisty, unrelenting, savory
Machado de Assis 1839
Mary McCarthy '12
Judy Holliday '22
Benezir Bhutto '53
Berke Breathed '57
Juliette Lewis '73
22 perfectionist, collaborative
Billy Wilder '06
Katherine Dunham '10
Octavia Butler '47
Meryl Streep '49
Clyde Drexler '62
23 weep, see
Anna Akhmatova 1889
Jean Anouilh '10
Wilma Rudolph '40
Frances McDormand '57
24 look
Rebecca Harding Davis 1831
Ambrose Bierce 1842
Chief Dan George 1899
Fred Hoyle '15
Julia Kristeva '41
25 mess with your heart
George Orwell '03
Aime Cesaire '13
Clifton Chenier '25
26 haunting vitality
Big Bill Broonzy 1898
Peter Lorre '04 (see 1/26)
27 delicate touch, impossible odds
Emma Goldman 1869
Paul Lawrence Dunbar 1872
Helen Keller 1880
Lucille Clifton '36
28 don't look
Peter Paul Rubens 1577
Mel Brooks '26
Pat Morita '33
John Cusack '66
29 yee hah
Slim Pickens '19
30 will get you
Czeslaw Milosz '11
Lena Horne '17
July
1 deep reserves
George Sand 1804
Ignaz Semmelweis 1818
Charles Laughton 1899
Isaac Babel '04
Varlam Shalamov '07
Willie Dixon '15
Twyla Tharp '41
Genevieve Bujold '42
Debbie Harry '45
Dan Ackroyd '52
2 stand up
Thurgood Marshall '08
Medger Evers '25
3 dark wit
Franz Kafka 1883
Tom Stoppard '37
4 helpful
U.S.A. 1776
Rube Goldberg 1883
Ann Landers '18
Abigail Van Buren '18
Eva Marie Saint '24
Neil Simon '27
5 vitality & fascination
P.T. Barnum 1810
Wanda Landowska 1879
Jean Cocteau 1891
Bessie Head '37
6 serenity & sass
Della Reese '32
Dalai Lama '35
7 ideosyncratic, emotional, direct (and note the rhyme: Chagall, Jamal, Duvall, Mahl-er)
Gustav Mahler 1860
Marc Chagall 1887
Vittorio De Sica '01
Ahmed Jamal '30
Joe Zawinul '32
Ringo Starr '40
Shelley Duvall '49
8 empathetic
Artemisia Gentileschi 1593
Käthe Kollwitz 1867
Billy Eckstine '14
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross '26
Angelica Huston '51
9 groundbreaker
Ann Radcliffe 1764
Nikola Tesla 1856
Franz Boas 1858
10 infinite pains, sensitivity
Camille Pissarro 1830
Marcel Proust 1871
Mary McLeod Bethune 1875
Arthur Ashe '43
Sue Lyon '46
11 painstaking, sense of proportion
Robert Bruce 1274
John Quincy Adams 1767
E.B. White 1899
Suzanne Vega '59
12 border-crossing
Henry David Thoreau 1817
Amedeo Modigliani 1884
Buckminster Fuller 1895
Pablo Neruda '04
Milton Berle '08
Bill Cosby '37
13 sensitive & pointed protest
John Clare 1793
Wole Soyinka '34
Albert Ayler '36
Cheech Marin '46
14 sensuous, soulful, prolific
Gustav Klimt 1862
Isaac Bashevis Singer '04
Ingmar Bergman '08
Woody Guthrie '12
Kenneth Clark '14
Harry Dean Stanton '26
Rosie Grier '32
Wim Wenders '45
15 mystic synthesizer with a fleeting smile
Rembrandt 1606
Walter Benjamin 1892
Iris Murdoch '19
Philly Jo Jones '23
Jacques Derrida '30
Forest Whittaker '61
16 earth-lover
Jean Baptiste Corot 1796
Ida Wells 1862
Desmond Dekker '42
17 incisive & candid
S.Y. Agnon 1888
Christina Stead '07
Donald Sutherland '35
18 liberate
Nelson Mandela '18
Screamin Jay Hawkins '29
Hunter S. Thompson '37
Martha Reeves '41
Louis Owens '48
19 sensitive, generous, serious
Edgar Degas 1834
George McGovern '22
20 advocate of passion
Petrarch 1304
Theda Bara 1890
Natalie Wood '38
Judy Chicago '39
Carlos Santana '47
21 quirky, beloved
Hart Crane 1899
Marshall McLuhan '11
Don Knotts '24
Cat Stevens '48
Robin Williams '52
Jon Lovitz '57
22 warm, dry, sharp
Emma Lazarus 1819
Edward Hopper 1882
Terence Stamp '39
George Clinton '40
Vaughn Bodé '41
Danny Glover '47
Willem Dafoe '55
23 intense compassion & wit
Raymond Chandler 1880
Barbara Deming '17
24 on a mission
Alexandre Dumas 1802
Amelia Earhart 1897
Bella Abzug '20
Michael Richards '49
25 magician
Maxfield Parrish 1870
Walter Payton '54
26 masterful, mercurial
George Bernard Shaw 1856
C.G. Jung 1875
Aldous Huxley 1894
Robert Graves 1895
Gracie Allen '02
Mick Jagger '44
Helen Mirren '46
Kevin Spacey '59
27 light, sober, concerned
Charlotte Corday 1768
Hillaire Belloc 1870
Norman Lear '22
28 intimate, reserved, allusive
Marcel Duchamp 1887
Kenneth Fearing '02
Malcolm Lowry '09
Woody Strode '14
29 enlightenment
Stanley Kunitz 1905
Chester Himes '09
Charlie Christian '16
30 solidity, precision
Emily Bronte 1818
Henry Moore 1898
Buddy Guy '36
Kate Bush '58
31 connection
Primo Levi '19
August
1 prodigious seer
Herman Melville 1819
Robert Cray '53
2 meticulous harmony
Elizabeth Bishop '11
James Baldwin '24
Peter O'Toole '33
3 a mournful arrangement
Rupert Brooke 1887
P.D. James '20
4 deceptive confidence
Percy Shelley 1792
Louis Armstrong '01
Witold Gombrowicz '04
Billy Bob Thornton '55
Barak Obama '61
5 sharp eye, powerful manipulator
Guy de Maupassant 1850
John Huston '06
Airto '41
Pat Ewing '62
6 candid, explicit
Robert Mitchum '17
Andy Warhol '28
Aminata Moseka (Abby Lincoln) '30
Diane DiPrima '34
Charlie Haden '37
Elliott Smith '69
7 pioneer, crowd-pleaser
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn 1890
Alfalfa (Carl Switzer) '27
Rahsaan Roland Kirk '36
8 sincere, candid, good
Nina Berberova '01
Dustin Hoffman '37
Keith Carradine '50
9 painstaking empathy
Jean Piaget 1896
Philip Larkin '22
10 sincere, ironic, iconic
Jack Haley '10
Jorge Amado '12
Ronnie Spector '43
Ian Anderson '47
Rosanna Arquette '59
11 dig deep
Louise Bogan 1897
August Wilson '13
Alex Haley '21
Jerzy Grotowski '33
Jan Palach '48
12 supernatural rhythm
Mark Knopfler '49
Pete Sampras '71
13 deadly wit
Lucy Stone 1818
Annie Oakley 1860
Bert Lahr 1895
Alfred Hitchcock 1899
Phillipe Petit '49
14 sassy
Russell Baker '25
Steve Martin '45
Larry Graham '46
Gary Larsen '50
Magic Johnson '59
15 gentle determination
E. Nesbit 1858
T.E. Lawrence 1888
Oscar Peterson '25
Jane Rule '31
16 the anguished truth
Charles Bukowski '20
Mal Waldron '26
Ted Hughes '30
17 committed
Marcus Garvey 1887
Mae West 1892
Ed Sanders '39
Robert DeNiro '43
18 out of left field
Shelley Winters '22
Alain Robbe-Grillet '22
Brian Aldis '25
Roman Polanski '33
Martin Mull '43
19 a bounteous gift
Charles Doughty 1843
Arthur Waley 1889
Ogden Nash '02
Bill Clinton '46
20 a dark gift
H.P. Lovecraft 1890
Jacob Glatshteyn 1896
Isaac Hayes '42
Robert Plant '48
21 string of hits
Aubrey Beardsley 1872
Count Basie '06
Christiane LeGrand '30
Wilt Chamberlain '36
Jackie DeShannon '44
22 a light in the darkness, and vice-versa
Dorothy Parker 1893
Dave Dellinger '22
Ray Bradbury '20
Karlheinz Stockhausen '28
23 a light, engaging touch
Gene Kelly '12
River Phoenix '70
24 perfection
Max Beerbohm 1872
Jean Rhys 1890
Jorge Luis Borges 1899
James Tiptree, Jr. '15
Solidarnosc '80
25 sass & irony
Clara Bow '05
Walt Kelly '13
Sean Connery '30
Elvis Costello '54
26 look out
Guillaume Apollinaire 1880
Julio Cortázar '14
27 a new perspective
Confucius 551
Man Ray 1890
Pee Wee Herman '52
28 light, authenticity
Johann Von Goethe 1749
James Wong Howe 1899
Morris Graves '10
Janet Frame '24
29 classic
Jean Auguste Ingres 1780
Ingrid Bergman '15
Charlie Parker '20
Dinah Washington '24
Eliot Gould '38
30 zap
Mary Shelley 1797
Maggie Kuhn '05
R. Crumb '43
Jean-Claude Killy '43
Molly Ivins '44
31 engage
Maria Montesorri 1870
Van Morrison '45
September
1 hel-lo
Lily Tomlin '39
2 caring
Henry George 1839
Cleveland Amory '17
Keanu Reeves '64
3 smouldering
Sarah Orne Jewett 1849
Irene Papas '26
Sergei Dovlatov '41
Patrice Rushen '54
4 artist, world-beater
Antonin Artaud 1896
Richard Wright '08
5 illuminator
Arthur Koestler '05
John Cage '12
6 defender
Marquis de Lafayette 1757
7 gripping individualist
Queen Elizabeth I 1533
Eleanor Wylie 1885
Jacob Lawrence '17
Ronnie Gilbert '26
Sonny Rollins '29
Buddy Holly '36
Chrissie Hynde '51
8 to the limit
Ludovico Ariosto 1474
Anton Dvorak 1841
Alfred Jarry '73
Peter Sellers '25
Patsy Cline '32
Pig Pen '45
Freddie Mercury '46
9 indefatigable
Lev Tolstoy 1828
Paul Goodman '11
Elvin Jones '27
Otis Redding '41
10 impossible
Georges Bataille 1897
Cyril Connolly '03
Yma Sumac '28
11 human nature
O. Henry 1862
D.H. Lawrence 1885
Theodor Adorno '03
Ted Draper '12
Leo Kottke '45
12 intricate, acute, nuanced
H.L. Mencken 1880
Maria Muldaur '43
Rachel Ward '57
13 dark & bright
Leonard Feather '14
Roald Dahl '16
Judith Martin '38
14 devotion to enlightenment
Margaret Sanger 1879
Jan Masaryk 1886
Jack Hawkins '10
Kate Millet '34
15 scary
Margaret Lockwood '16
Cannonball Adderly '28
16 natural style
Mexico 1810
T.E. Hulme 1883
Jean Arp 1887
Lauren Bacall '24
B.B. King '25
Elgin Baylor '34
17 speak up
William Carlos Williams 1883
Frank O'Connor '03
Ken Kesey '35
18 straight shooter
Samuel Johnson 1709
Greta Garbo '05
Lance Armstrong '71
19 fantasy meets reality
Arthur Rackham 1867
William Golding '11
Francis Farmer '13
Mike Royko '32
David McCallum '33
Cass Eliot '41
Crystal Bullitt '70
20 mercurial, committed, witty
Upton Sinclair 1878
Jelly Roll Morton 1890
Stevie Smith '02
Donald Hall '28
Sophia Loren '34
21 dedicated
H.G. Wells 1866
Leonard Cohen '34
Marsha Norman '47
Artis Gilmore '49
Bill Murray '50
22 contrary
Fay Weldon '33
Joan Jett '60
Eric Stolz '61
23 workhorse, friend
Mickey Rooney '20
John Coltrane '26
Ray Charles '30
Bruce Springsteen '49
24 fantasies of success
F. Scott Fitzgerald 1896
Phil Hartman '48
25 spirit
William Faulkner 1897
Mark Rothko '03
Dmitri Shostakovich '06
John Berryman '14
Glenn Gould '33
Scottie Pippen '65
26 covers all the bases
T.S. Eliot 1888
Marina Tsvetayeva 1892
George Gershwin 1898
Cyprian Ekwensi '21
Mihajlo Mihajlov '34
Serena Williams '81
27 devise the method
William Empson '06
Bud Powell '24
28 a beauty
Caravaggio 1569
Marcello Mastroianni '24
Brigitte Bardot '34
Koko Taylor '35
Ben E. King '38
Janeane Garofalo '64
29 expose the truth
Cervantes 1547
Elizabeth Gaskell 1810
Boris Pilnyak 1894
Michelangelo Antonioni '12
Madeline Kahn '42
Lech Walesa '43
30 a careful touch
Deborah Kerr '21
Elie Wiesel '28
Johnny Mathis '35
October
1 soft
Walter Matthau '20
Jimmy Carter '24
Lawrence Harvey '28
Richard Harris '32
2 simplicity: liberation
Mahatma Gandhi 1869
Wallace Stevens 1879
Groucho Marx 1898
Graham Greene '04
Crockett Johnson '06
Richard Hell '49
3 so right
Sergei Esenin 1865
Pierre Bonnard 1867
Gore Vidal '25
Steve Reich '36
Chubby Checker '41
4 dry mischief
Buster Keaton 1895
Susan Sarandon '46
Alicia Silverstone '76
5 wry power
Flann O'Brian '11
Donald Pleasence '19
Glynis Johns '23
Václav Havel '36
Grant Hill '72
6 blatantly subtle
Le Corbusier 1887
Carole Lombard '08
7 breakthrough
Niels Bohr 1885
Andy Devine '05
R.D. Laing '27
Desmond Tutu '31
Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) '34
Yo-yo Ma '55
8 the remedy
John Cowper Powys 1872
Jesse Jackson '41
Johnny Ramone '48
Sigourney Weaver '49
9 master of time
Léopold Senghor '06
Jacques Tati '08
Yusef Lateef '20
John Lennon '40
Peter Tosh '44
10 take on all comers
Giuseppe Verdi 1813
Ivan Bunin 1870
Helen Hayes 1900
Thelonius Monk '17
Harold Pinter '30
Ben Vereen '46
11 perfectionism, wit, gravitas
Eleanor Roosevelt 1884
François Mauriac 1885
Roman Jakobson 1896
Jerome Robbins '18
Art Blakey '19
Elmore Leonard '25
12 the way of the world
Sappho 612 b.c.
Stanislaw Lem '21
Dick Gregory '32
13 contrapunctual
Art Tatum '10
Yves Montand '21
Nipsy Russell '24
Lenny Bruce '25
Paul Simon '41
14 all in the details
Helen Hunt Jackson 1830
e.e. cummings 1864
Katherine Mansfield 1888
Lillian Gish 1896
Hannah Arendt '06
John Wooden '10
15 liberate us
Friedrich Nietzsche 1844
P.G. Wodehouse 1881
John Kenneth Galbraith '08
Italo Calvino '23
Michel Foucault '26
Fela Anikolapu Kuti '38
16 power & illusion
Oscar Wilde 1851
Eugene O'Neill 1888
Gunter Grass '27
Anne Francis '30
Nico '38
Tim Robbins '58
17 uneasy, compelling
Isak Dinesen 1885
Arthur Miller '15
Montgomery Clift '20
Jimmy Breslin '30
Evel Knievel '38
Margot Kidder '48
18 hard-edged, very particular, and nice
Thomas Love Peacock 1785
Melina Mercouri '23
Chuck Berry '26
Klaus Kinski '26
George C. Scott '27
Peter Boyle '35
Martina Navratilova '56
19 appreciative critic
Leigh Hunt 1784
Lewis Mumford 1895
John LeCarré '31
Divine '45
20 jaunty nightmares
Odilon Redon 1840
Arthur Rimbaud 1854
Charles Ives 1874
Bela Lugosi 1882
Jean Pierre Melville '17
Frank Herbert '20
Philip Whalen '23
Art Buchwald '25
21 syncopated, uplifting
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772
Dizzy Gillespie '17
Ursula K. LeGuin '29
Manfred Mann '40
Elvin Bishop '42
22 light, action
Franz Liszt 1811
Sarah Bernhardt 1844
N.C. Wyeth 1882
Doris Lessing '19
Robert Rauschenberg '25
Catherine Deneuve '43
23 no mercy
Louis Riel 1844
Pele '40
Weird Al Yankovic '59
24 cheerful heart-surgery
Moss Hart '04
Sonny Terry '13
Denise Levertov '23
Kevin Kline '47
25 thorough
Georges Bizet 1838
Pablo Picasso 1881
Leo G. Carroll 1892
26 a higher reality
Andrey Bely 1880
Mahalia Jackson '11
Jackie Coogan '14
Bob Hoskins '42
Divine '45
Bootsy Collins '51
27 freedom ain't easy
Nestor Makhno 1889
Dylan Thomas '14
Ruby Dee '24
Sylvia Plath '32
John Cleese '39
Maxine Hong Kingston '40
28 equalizer
Desiderius Erasmus 1466
Francis Bacon '09
Jonas Salk '14
Charlie Daniels '36
Dennis Franz '44
Julia Roberts '67
29 laugh at yourself
Fanny Brice 1891
Bill Mauldin '21
Zbigniew Herbert '24
Niki de Saint Phalle '30
Richard Dreyfuss '47
Winona Ryder '71
30 pure sensation
Fyodor Dostoevsky 1821
Alfred Sisley 1839
Paul Valery 1871
Ezra Pound 1885
Ruth Gordon 1896
Gordon Parks '12
Louis Malle '32
Henry Winkler '45
31 whose name was writ in water
Jan Vermeer 1632
John Keats 1795
Nadezhda Mandelstam 1899
Ethel Waters 1900
Sally Kirkland '44
Arnaud Desplechin '60
November
1 clear & right
Stephen Crane 1871
Hermann Broch 1886
Naomi Mitcheson 1897
Sippie Wallace 1898
Lyle Lovett '57
2 defy gravity
Luchino Visconti '06
Burt Lancaster '13
Ray Walston '14
k.d. lang '61
3 committed
Andre Malraux '01
Charles Bronson '31
Abbie Hoffman '36
Roseanne Barr '52
4 simple clarity
Will Rogers 1879
Art Carney '18
Robert Mapplethorpe '46
5 shabby nobility
Joel McCrea '05
Art Garfunkle '41
Sam Shepard '43
Gram Parsons '46
Bill Walton '52
6 effective, affective
Adolphe Sax 1814
Mike Nichols '31
Sally Field '46
7 lift us up
Marie Curie 1867
Albert Camus '13
R.A. Lafferty '14
Mary Travers '37
Joni Mitchell '43
8 a wild ride home
Dorothy Day 1897
Katherine Hepburn '09
Esther Rolle '20
Bonnie Bramlett '44
Minnie Riperton '48
Bonnie Raitt '49
Parker Posey '68
9 the brutal truth, gently put
Ivan Turgenev 1818
Velimir Khlebnikov 1885
Anne Sexton '28
10 wide-ranging wit
Oliver Goldsmith 1728
Vachel Lindsay 1879
Claude Rains 1889
Richard Burton '25
Sinbad '56
11 mesmerizing
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. '22
Shelly Winters '25
Ernestine Anderson '28
Bibi Andersson '35
Leonardo DiCaprio '74
12 push the envelope
Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1815
Auguste Rodin 1840
Roland Barthes '15
Grace Kelly '29
Wallace Shawn '43
Neil Young '45
Sammy Sosa '68
Tonya Harding '70
13 sensitive, devoted, singular
Edwin Booth 1833
Louis Brandeis 1856
Oskar Werner '22
Richard Mulligan '32
Jean Seberg '38
John Hammond '42
Whoopi Goldberg '49
14 beautiful
Claude Monet 1840
Jawaharlal Nehru 1889
Aaron Copeland 1900
William Steig '07
Veronica Lake '19
15 poetic justice
Charlotte Mew 1869
Georgia O'Keefe 1887
Marianne Moore 1887
Ed Asner '29
J.G. Ballard '30
Clyde McPhatter '33
Sam Waterston '40
16 tough, sharp-eyed, visionary
W.C. Handy 1873
Aleksandr Blok 1880
Paul Hindemith 1895
Burgess Meredith '08
Chinua Achebe '30
Lisa Bonet '67
Oksana Baiul '77
17 uncompromising
Auguste Möbius 1790
Lee Strasberg '01
Peter Cook '37
Gordon Lightfoot '38
Martin Scorsese '42
Danny DeVito '44
RuPaul '60
18 revelator
Sojourner Truth 1787
Wyndham Lewis 1882
Imogene Coca '08
Hank Ballard '36
James Welch '40
Margaret Atwood '38
19 friendly
Dick Cavett '36
Jodie Foster '62
20 incisive, thorough
Selma Lagerlöf 1858
Alistair Cooke '08
Nadine Gordimer '23
Robert Kennedy '25
21 relaxed & witty technician
Jean François Voltaire 1694
Alexander Berkman 1870
Veza Canetti 1897
Rene Magritte 1898
Coleman Hawkins '04
Dr. John '40
Goldie Hawn '44
Ken Griffey, Jr. '69
22 intuitive
George Eliot 1819
Endre Ady 1877
Hoagy Carmichael 1899
Gunter Schuller '25
Robert Vaughn '32
Billy Jean King '43
Jamie Lee Curtis '58
Mariel Hemingway '61
23 mad hilarity
Harpo Marx 1888
Paul Celan '20
Shel Silverstein '32
24 enlightenment
Benedictus Spinoza 1632
Scott Joplin 1868
25 go for broke
Carrie Nation 1846
Joe DiMaggio '14
Lenny Wilkins '37
Shelegh Delaney '39
John Larroquette '47
26 the heart of the matter
Eugène Ionesco '12
Charles Schulz '22
Tina Turner '38
27 tear up the script
James Agee '09
Buffalo Bob Smith '17
Alexander Dubcek '21
Bruce Lee '40
Jimi Hendrix '42
28 set me straight
William Blake 1757
Dawn Powell '97
Claude Lévi-Strauss '08
Randy Newman '43
Rita Mae Brown '44
Emmet Grogan '44
Ed Harris '50
29 stirring spirit
Wendell Phillips 1811
Louisa May Alcott 1829
C.S. Lewis 1898
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. '08
Madeline L'Engle '18
Pearl Primus '19
John Mayall '33
Gary Shandling '49
Cathy Moriarty '60
30 pointed wit
Jonathan Swift 1767
Mark Twain 1835
Abbie Hoffman '36
David Mamet '47
December
1 a self-revealing hoot
Woody Allen '35
Lou Rawls '36
Richard Pryor '40
Bette Midler '45
2 infinite pains
Georges Seurat 1859
Peter Goldmark '06
Maria Callas '23
Lucy Liu '68
Monica Seles '73
3 unchained melody
Padre Soler 1729
Joseph Conrad 1857
Jean-Luc Goddard '30
Del Shannon '39
4 foe of conformity
Thomas Carlyle 1795
Samuel Butler 1835
Crazy Horse 1842
Wassily Kandinsky 1866
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875
Jim Hall '30
Jeff Bridges '49
Jesse Bernstein '50
5 serenity = hysteria
Christina Rossetti 1830
Werner Heisenberg '01
Little Richard '32
J.J. Cale '38
6 self-effacing, but not subtle
Dave Brubeck '20
Wally Cox '24
Steven Wright '55
7 sensitive
Willa Cather 1873
Eli Wallach '15
Ellen Burstyn '32
Tom Waits '49
Larry Bird '56
C. Thomas Howell '66
8 panoramic
Jean Sibelius 1865
Norman Douglas 1868
Diego Rivera 1886
James Thurber 1894
Padraic Colum '08
Lee J. Cobb '11
Delmore Schwartz '13
Jim Morrison '43
Sinead O'Connor '66
9 heretical, commanding affection
John Milton 1608
Emmett Kelly 1898
Margaret Hamilton '02
Kirk Douglas '16
Redd Foxx '22
John Osborne '29
Joan Armatrading '50
10 love against death
Emily Dickinson 1830
Gertrude Kolmar 1894
Olivier Messiaen '08
Reginald Rose '20
Clarice Lispector '24
Carolyn Kizer '25
11 broad strokes, heart
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn '18
Big Mama Thornton '26
Rita Moreno '31
McCoy Tyner '38
12 beauty, reality, tenderness
Gustave Flaubert 1821
Edvard Munch 1863
Vasily Grossman '05
Richard Hugo '23
Helen Frankenthaler '28
Toshiko Akiyoshi '29
Connie Francis '38
Dionne Warwick '40
13 nervous irony
Nostradamus 1503
Heinrich Heine 1797
Kenneth Patchen '11
Archie Moore '13
14 dark, audacious
Shirley Jackson '19
Lee Remick '35
Stanley Crouch '45
Lester Bangs '48
15 so close to greatness
Maxwell Anderson 1888
Friedensreich Hundertwasser '28
Tim Conway '33
Dave Clark '42
Don Johnson '49
16 enhanced reality
Ludwig Van Beethoven 1770
Jane Austen 1775
Vladimir Tatlin 1885
Margaret Mead '01
Philip K. Dick '28
Liv Ullmann '39
17 critic, dreamer
Ford Maddox Ford 1873
Ezekiel Mphalele '19
18 make the invisible visible
Saki 1870
Paul Klee 1879
Ossie Davis '17
Keith Richards '43
Steve Biko '46
19 naked heart
Lezama Lima '10
Jean Genet '10
Edith Piaf '15
Cicily Tyson '33
Phil Ochs '40
Darryl Hannah '60
20 intense, deft, complex
Eugenia Ginzburg '06
Hortense Calisher '11
Anita Baker '57
21 conscience, verve, & an even keel
Masaccio 1401
Benjamin Disraeli 1804
Peter Kropotkin 1842
Heinrich Böll '17
Frank Zappa '40
Samuel L. Jackson '48
22 uncertain fate
Edwin Arlington Robinson 1869
Kenneth Rexroth '05
Robin & Maurice Gibb '49
23 world-weary earth-shaker
Madame C.J. Walker 1867
José Greco '18
Chet Baker '29
Esther Phillips '35
Tim Hardin '41
24 righteous
Michael Curtiz 1888
I.F. Stone '07
Ava Gardner '22
25 smart, comprehensive, truthful
Isaac Newton 1642
Maurice Utrillo 1883
Rebecca West '92
Humphrey Bogart '99
Cab Calloway '07
Quentin Crisp '08
Anwar Sadat '18
Rod Serling '24
Sissy Spacek '49
Annie Lennox '54
26 indelible craftsmanship
Thomas Gray 1816
Jean Toomer 1894
Henry Miller 1891
Richard Widmark '14
Steve Allen '21
Phil Spector '40
27 knowledge
Johannes Kepler 1571
Louis Pasteur 1822
Mina Loy 1882
Marlene Dietrich '04
Charles Olson '10
John Amos '39
28 sure-handed, joy & beauty
Pio Baroja 1872
Earl Fatha Hines '05
Johnny Otis '24
Guy Debord '31
Maggie Smith '34
Edgar Winter '46
Denzel Washington '54
29 light & melancholy
Andrew Johnson 1808
Pablo Casals 1876
Mary Tyler Moore '36
Jon Voight '38
Marianne Faithfull '46
30 determined, funny
Stephen Leacock 1869
Jack Lord '20
Bo Diddley '28
Russ Tamblyn '34
Paul Stookey '37
Tracy Ullman '59
Tiger Woods '75
31 colorful, sensual, dedicated
John Wycliffe 1320
Henri Matisse 1869
Odetta '30
Sarah Miles '41
Ben Kingsley '43
Patti Smith '46
references:
twentieth-century culture - bullock & woodings, ed. 1983
(omits lots of women - dorothy day, emma goldman, nadine gordimer, eva hesse, zora hurston, jane jacobs, doris lessing, flannery o'connor, dorothy parker, edith piaf, dorothy richardson, margaret sanger, anne sexton, susan sontag; and african-americans - ralph ellison, thurgood marshall, richard wright; but lists mediocrities like larry adler, wladyslaw gomulka, alger hiss, vidkun quisling, aleksey tolstoy. except for the obvious bias in selection, a very useful biographical dictionary)
penguin encyclopedia of pop music - clarke, ed. 1989
(comprehensive, generous, mostly accurate. missing: paul & paula, the sonics, the cyrkle, rufus harley, lothar & the hand people, cris williamson, linda tillery, ferron, phranc, butthole surfers, husker dü)
required writing - philip larkin 1983
1999 sheroes calendar - ho & genetti, eds.
cyclopedia of world authors - magill, ed. 1958
encyclopedia brittanica 1911
famousbirthdays.com
can't find birthdays for:
john donne 1572
christopher smart
harriet tubman 1820
ida tarbell 1857
tecumseh
sitting bull
red cloud
geronimo
elena guro
rene grousset
sun ra '14
johnny otis '21
miriama ba '29
mary butts
rachel rosenthal
alice miller
virgilio pinera
robert conquest
philippe de broca
robert deane pharr
michael roemer
honi coles
cissy houston
etta james '38
taban lo liyong '39
ama ata aidoo '40
babatunde olatunji
terry thomas
nico '40
teo savory
nancy mairs
bobby seale
ai
alta
ti-grace atkinson
cecelia holland
? (rudy martinez) '45
jon waters
steve paxton
andrei konchalovsky
mary barnard
judith malina
mary mccarthy
nell dunn
jane gaskell
kim stanley
bel hooks
regina taylor
reuben blades
katherine dunn
linda tillery
ferron
phranc
willie tyson
cris williamson
meg christian
margie adam
tret fure
genya ravan '40
jill johnston
sarah schulman
susan marshall
sharon doubiago
brenda buffalino
marilyn hacker '42
cookie mueller
barbara ehrenreich
andrea dworkin
alix dobkin
charles burnett
jimmy cliff '48
roky erickson
gibby haynes
diamanda galas '52
siouxie sue
chuck d
surya bonelly
dan savage
(note: it's frustrating trying to find certain individuals on the internet. search engines confuse the poet ai with artificial intelligence, and the poet alta with innumerable software companies. mary barnard yields reams and reams of geneological sites, and kim stanley is eclipsed by the science fiction writer kim stanley robinson.)
intentionally omitted (i don't like them, or consider them minor, overrated, unworthy. or else I don't know enough about them to judge, irrational reasons, or they spoil the pattern so drastically that I doubt that's really their birthday):
lewis carroll 1/27
al kooper 2/5
arthur schopenhauer 2/22
mircea eliade 3/8
florence nightengale 5/12
louis-ferdinand celine 5/27
t-bone walker 5/28
alanis morrissette 6/1
phylicia rashad 6/19
eric dickerson 9/2
clayton moore 9/14
victoria woodhull 9/23
meat loaf 9/27
spanky mcfarland 10/2
cornell wilde 10/13
ike turner 11/5
al hirt 11/7
hedy lamar 11/9
dick powell 11/14
donn byrne 11/20
benjamin britten 11/22
boris karloff 11/23
shuggie otis 11/30
winston churchill 11/30
agnes moorehead 12/6
flip wilson 12/8
maximilian schell 12/8
mary queen of scots 12/8
john hammond, sr. 12/10
kenneth branagh 12/10
brenda lee 12/11
paul eluard 12/14
noel coward 12/16
arthur c. clarke 12/16
paul winchell 12/21
lew ayres 12/28
rudyard kipling 12/30
del shannon 12/30/39
britt eklund
richard wagner
lindsay wagner
jack dempsey
william wellman
A menology was a medieval catalogue of Saint's days.
1:
radical, rhythm, heartstrings
liberation
thorough, sweet
commanding, charming
bright & wrenching yarnspinning
say no more
deep reserves
prodigious seer
hel-lo
soft
clear & right
a self-revealing hoot