Some saints are highly secular. But for some of us they form our strongest religion. In no particular order whatsoever: Merce Cunningham. Diane Arbus. Kerouac & Cassady. Dickinson. Hemingway. Capote. Plath. Martha Graham. Anne Sexton. Jackie Robinson. Sandy Koufax. Julia Child. Muhammad Ali. Louis and Ella. Tenzing Norgay, because sherpas do all the heavy lifting. Jane Goodall. Harvey Milk. Tennessee Williams. James Baldwin. Langston Hughes. Robert Lowell. Billy Wilder and Kurosawa, Hitchcock and Truffaut, Polanski, Kubrick, Capra, Almodovar, Cuaron & Inarritu & del Toro. Imogen Cunningham. Lucien Freud. Francis Bacon, Botero, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Chuck Close, Robert Crumb, William Eggleston, Robert Frank, Tina Modotti, Claes Oldenburg, Meret Oppenheim, Diego Rivera, Cindy Sherman, Julian Schnabel, Wayne Thiebaud, John Currin, Helen Levitt, Richard Avedon. Hunter S. Thompson, dammit. Philip Roth. Joyce Carol Oates. Donald Barthelme. Raymond Carver. Roald Dahl. Salinger Salinger Saliger. Philip K. Dick. Junot Diaz. Nikolai Gogol. Amy Hempel. Patricia Highsmith. Shirley Jackson & Alice Munro. Grace Paley & Dorothy Parker. Annie Proulx. George Saunders. Ricky Gervais and Eddie Izzard forever amen. Christiane Amanpour. Hendrik Hertzberg and every single New Yorker writer. Rachel Maddow. Maira Kalman. Philip Petite. The French, period. While we're at it, the Italians. Anyone not going to a 'tea party' circa April 2009. The voters of Iowa and Vermont circa April 2009. Gore Vidal. Ingrid Newkirk. Michael Pollan. Fareed Zakaria. Toni Morrison. Tom Stoppard, still. Gloria Steinem, always.
great names
ReplyDeleteI would add Helen Keller
Hey Janet, who IS this little goddess with the perky boobies anyway? I love her. Do you know what her origins are? And what on earth are all those pins sticking in her? She is a martyr isn't she? Is she really Frieda Kahlo or some other Mexican deity? Would love to know more. Charlotte
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