Happy Birthday, Mr. Fowl!

Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer was born on this day in 1965. From The Writer’s Almanac:

Colfer once described the series as “Die Hard with fairies.” Its protagonist is a brilliant teenage criminal named Artemis Fowl II who masterminds various complicated scams around the world -- the stories are set in Siberia, in Vietnam, in Morocco, in Paris, Chicago, parts of Ireland -- all with the goal of getting filthy rich. The books are filled with fairies and fairy institutions; there's even a fairy government and a fairy police force.

Most recently, of course, Colfer wrote the sixth book in the late Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series. And Another Thing... (Hyperion) was released last year, exactly three decades after the publication of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Almanac informs us it’s also the birthday of the exquisite David Byrne, “musician, filmmaker installation artist, recording executive and writer” who was born in Scotland in 1952 and “who’s been called the ‘thinking man’s rock star’ by The New York Times and ‘Rock’s Renaissance Man’ by Time magazine.”

Same as it ever was.