Fifty-eight years ago today, the film The Birds premiered. The film is visually beautiful and frightening, the performances are brilliant, and the story is disturbing. The Birds was honored by the American Film Institute as the seventh greatest thriller in American Cinema. You have to see this movie (again).

Today is the 135th birthday of one of my personal favorite architects: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. You know his Farnsworth House and Barcelona Chair designs. I have always found his sharp corners and Less is More approach to design very modern, calming, and just plain non-fussy. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

Today is the 97th birthday of arguably one of the very best jazz singers of the last century:  Sarah Vaughan.  Our local public radio station has a Big Band and Jazz program every Saturday night, I remember hearing a recording of her singing Black Coffee over twenty years ago and it resonated with me. The stripped down solitude of the arrangement is perfection.  The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

Sixty-nine years ago today, the film Singin’ in the Rain premiered. This film is spectacular and just the kind of escape we all could use right now. You have to see this film.

This episode is also available as a blog post.

Today is the 114th birthday of the author and Seattleite Betty MacDonald. She grew up in Seattle and lived on Vashon as an adult. Her Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books were introduced to me as a kid by my librarian grandmother. The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she is gone.

Today is the 60th birthday of visionary, artist, and quite possibly alien from the future Leigh Bowery.  It is very brave to make your life performance art. You can see his influences in people are considered ‘edgy’ today.  The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left it.

Today is the 90th birthday of Leonard Nimoy. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left. #LLAP

Today is the 147th birthday of the poet Robert Frost. Everyone knows “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” as the first line of his poem The Road Not Taken. If it was intentionally written as an anthem for nonconformity or not (it was not), poetry is released into the air, inhaled by the reader, and interpreted through their eyes, their previous experiences, and is given a specific and unique meaning. Read the poem yourself, do not conform to the idea of its nonconformity meaning. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

Today is the 110th birthday of the playwright Tennessee Williams. If you ever get a chance to see a production of one of his plays, do not squander it. Until then, find a copy of the film version. They are some of the best films of that time staring some of the very best actors of that time. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

Today is the 133rd birthday of one half of one of the most elegant couples of the Jazz-Age-Lost-Generation-Paris-in-the-1920s:  Gerald Murphy.  I think that I first ‘discovered’ Gerald and Sara Murphy when I was reading a collections of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s letters.  He and Sara wrote back and forth quite frequently, especially after Zelda’s first trip to the hospital.  I feel in love them while mourned the slow death of letter writing.  No one will ever publish a collection of text messages between anyone, that form of communication is one of the casualties on the other side of the conveniences of all this connectivity.  The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.