BORN DECEMBER 31:
Henri Matisse (1869-1954) French artist, one of the Fauves (wild beasts) known for their use of intense color. He is commonly regarded, with Picasso, as one of the artists responsible for significant developments in 20th-century arts. Representative works include Woman with a Hat; The Joy of Life; Nu bleu; and La Danse.
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BORN DECEMBER 30:
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) Indian-born English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist, whose "children's books" say more than many "adult books" these days; The Jungle Book; Just So Stories; Kim; Captains Courageous; poems "If—"; "Gunga Din"; "The White Man's Burden"; Nobel Prize in Literature (1907)
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BORN DECEMBER 29:
Pablo Casals (1876-1973) Catalan cellist and conductor, one of the greatest cellists of all time, who gave a solo recital in Barcelona at the age of fourteen. Best remembered for recordings of the "Bach Cello Suites" made from 1936 to 1939; Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1963, among many honors.
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BORN DECEMBER 28:
Arthur Eddington (1882-1944) English astronomer, physicist, mathematician, philosopher who (most importantly for many of us) became a household name as a popularizer of science; The Mathematical Theory of Relativity; The Nature of the Physical World; and New Pathways in Science.
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BORN DECEMBER 27:
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) German astronomer and mathematician who codified the laws of planetary motion; he wrote Astronomia Nova (New Astronomy); Harmonices Mundi (The Harmony of the World); and Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae (Epitome of Copernican Astronomy).
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BORN DECEMBER 26:
Thomas Gray (1716-1771) English poet. His Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is believed to have been about the "rustic poor" buried in the graveyard at St. Giles' parish church at Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire, England; Gray himself is now buried in that same ground. The mockingly-elegiac "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes" has a completely different effect.
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BORN DECEMBER 25:
Cab Calloway (1907-1994) larger-than-life American performer and bandleader, dubbed the "Hi-de-ho" man and noted for his energetic scat singing. A regular performer at Harlem's Cotton Club, he mixed jazz with vaudeville, sustaining a career that spanned over 65 years. He received the National Medal of Arts from the US Congress in 1993, and a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. Songs included "Minnie the Moocher"; "Saint James Infirmary"; "Kicking the Gong Around"; "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea"; and many more.
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BORN DECEMBER 24:
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) English poet and critic, as well as school inspector. Poems: The pessimistic "Dover Beach" is perhaps his most-anthologized work today (love is the answer to modern despair); "The Scholar-Gipsy" is based on undercover work by an impoverished 17th-century Oxford student; "Thyrsis" was written at the death of the poet Arthur Hugh Clough; books include Culture and Anarchy and Literature and Dogma among others.
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BORN DECEMBER 23:
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869) French literary critic widely translated into English. Port-Royal--considered his masterpiece--is an exhaustive history of an abbey near Paris, a work which influenced later writers on writing about religious belief, as well as areas of philosophy and esthetics. He also wrote "What Is a Classic?" and a notable essay on "Montaigne."
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BORN DECEMBER 22:
Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915) French naturalist, entomologist, and author who wrote works on insects, especially for younger readers. Known for his "lively style," Fabre was the rare individual who could teach something about bugs while keeping it "fun." Try Fabre's Book of Insects, a retelling of his Souvenirs entomologiques (also worth a look--if you read French).
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BORN DECEMBER 21:
Albert Payson Terhune (1872-1942) American author, dog breeder, and journalist who wrote around 70 books, over 30 of them about dogs, specifically his collies, including Lad: A Dog.
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BORN DECEMBER 20:
George Roy Hill (1922-2002) American director of such films as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (nominated: Oscar for Best Director) and The Sting (won: Oscar for Best Director), both with Paul Newman and Robert Redford; as well as Slaughterhouse-Five, The World According to Garp, The Little Drummer Girl, and others. (Note that many of these were adapted from books.)
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BORN DECEMBER 19:
Jean Genet (1910-1986) French writer--once a vagabond and petty criminal--who became a novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist; novels include the largely-autobiographical Our Lady of the Flowers and The Thief's Journal (only partly autobiographical); and the plays The Balcony and The Maids (not at all autobiographical, as far as I can tell).
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BORN DECEMBER 18:
Steven Spielberg (1946 - ) ubiquitous American filmmaker; Jaws; Close Encounters of the Third Kind; Raiders of the Lost Ark; E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial; The Color Purple; Empire of the Sun; Schindler's List (Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director); Amistad; Saving Private Ryan (Oscar for Best Director; Munich; Lincoln; Jurassic Park; 14 more Academy Award nominations to date.
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BORN DECEMBER 17:
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) prototypical German composer best known for his Fifth and Ninth Symphonies (the other seven are pretty good, too); Concertos (Emperor); sonatas (Moonlight, Pathetique); opera Fidelio; "Fur Elise." In art, there's Picasso; in science, Einstein; in music, it's Beethoven.
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BORN DECEMBER 16:
Jane Austen (1775-1817) revered English novelist known for the biting irony, realism, sense of humor, and social commentary revealed in her six major novels: Sense and Sensibility; Pride and Prejudice; Mansfield Park; Emma; Northanger Abbey; and Persuasion.
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BORN DECEMBER 15:
Freeman Dyson (1923-2020) groundbreaking English-American theoretical physicist and mathematician who originated several concepts that bear his name, none of which I understand. Look, I applaud advances in we humans' grasp of the infinite mysteries of the universe. But just like I don't know the technology behind my TV or the process of making sourdough bread, I'm just gonna sit back and reap the benefits of the knowledge of others, and appreciate their efforts.
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BORN DECEMBER 14:
Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) American novelist and short story writer; The Haunting of Hill House; "Charles"; "The Lottery." It's hard to believe that the whimsical "Charles," about a kid who gets away with figurative murder, could come from the same mind that produced "The Lottery," about literal ritualized murder. But there it is.
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BORN DECEMBER 13:
Ross Macdonald (1915-1983) American-Canadian author of crime stories, especially the Lew Archer series. Macdonald imbued stories of the stereotypically "hardboiled" Archer with surprising literary themes and psychological depth--more like Spenser, less like Spade. Not to be confused with John D. MacDonald (that's Travis McGee).
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BORN DECEMBER 12:
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) French author, and leading French exponent of literary realism in his country. His debut novel Madame Bovary made his name; no less than Guy de Maupassant was his protégé. His stories include "A Simple Heart," "Saint Julian the Hospitalier," and "Hérodias."
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