Birthdays Today

Auguste Rodin, the sculptor, was born today in 1840.   I've always been moved by his famous bust of Balzac, which pictures the writer almost struggling to emerge from the stone:

Today is also the birthday of the one-and-only Grace Kelly, born in 1929.   Hard to imagine that she would be a year older than my mother now, but I guess that's what happens when you disappear from movies at such a young age, and then are taken away by death far too young.   Here's a great shot of her when she was 25 or so:

Finally, today is the sixty-fifth birthday of the best quarter of the rock quartet, CSNY, Neil Young.  There weren't many albums in the early 1970s better than Harvest.   Here's one of the greatest tracks from that album, "Heart of Gold," in a live version.   The first two minutes of the clip are hilarious, as Young jokes about trying to figure out which harmonica to use: