Curated playlist
Anti-consumerists
- Al GoreAl Gore won the 2000 popular vote but lost the presidency by 537 Florida votes.
- Karl MarxKarl Marx left an estate valued at just 250 pounds when he died in 1883. He died stateless in London at 64.
- Philip K. DickPhilip K. Dick died four months before Blade Runner opened. He never saw the film that made his name famous.
- Pope FrancisPope Francis stepped onto the balcony of Saint Peter's Basilica in March 2013 and greeted the crowd with one plain Italian word, "Buonasera", which means good evening. Moments later he described himself as a pope who had come almost from…
- Arthur MillerArthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman in less than six weeks. He finished the first act in less than a day.
- M.I.A. (rapper)M.I.A. arrived in London as an eleven-year-old refugee speaking no English. She later became a Grammy and Oscar nominee.
- Herbert MarcuseHerbert Marcuse analyzed Nazi ideology for American spies before students made him a hero.
- Noam ChomskyNoam Chomsky wrote his first article at age 10, about the fall of Barcelona.
- Pope Benedict XVIPope Benedict XVI was born Joseph Alois Ratzinger on Holy Saturday, the 16th of April 1927, and was baptised the same day. For years as a cardinal, he said what he wanted most was a quiet life in his house in Pentling, a Bavarian village…
- Aldous HuxleyAldous Huxley died the same day as John F. Kennedy, and almost nobody noticed. C. S. Lewis died that afternoon too.
- John RuskinA jury awarded painter Whistler one farthing in his libel suit against critic John Ruskin.
- Peter KropotkinAnarchist thinker Peter Kropotkin refused a cabinet seat in Russia's Provisional Government.
- Erich FrommErich Fromm argued that falling in love is not love at all. His 1956 book The Art of Loving became a bestseller.