Daily Bleed Radical Literary History for July 26th

The poet is there To see to it the tree does not grow crooked. — Nicanor Parra, excerpt, “Manifesto” Emergency Poems (1972)

JULY 26

JAIME SEMPRUN
French-born pro-situ writer, essayist, editor, founder of the publishing house Éditions de l'Encyclopédie des Nuisances.

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ALL OR NOTHING DAY.

Cuba: REVOLUTION DAY.

Athens (Greece meets Grease?), Texass: BLACK-EYED PEAS JAMBOREE

Illustration by Clifford Harper

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811 -- Nicephorus I, Byzantine emperor, killed in battle with the Bulgars.


1529 -- Queen of Spain executes the Capitulation, which defines the powers & privileges of Pizarro in Peru.


1645 -- Matthew Hopkins, "Witch-finder General," helps to condemn 26 people as witches in Norfolk, England.



1680 -- Woodstock '80?: Think frolicking naked at Woodstock was a 1960s invention? Consider Thomas Hearne's account about a man who died on this date:

"John Wilmot, the frolicksome Earl of Rochester, used sometimes, with others of his companions, to run naked, & particularly they did so once in Woodstocke Park."

1775 -- Elusive Stamp of Approval?: US Post Office established.


1809 -- Poet Karoline von Gunderode dies, a suicide.


1829 -- In Michigan Territory, the Chippewa, Ottowa, & Potawatomi cede much of their land to US government.


1833 -- Slavery abolished in all British dominions.


1848 -- Ivan Turgenev watches the collapse of the Revolution in Paris, events he fictionalizes in Rudin.


1856 -- George Bernard Shaw, lives, Dublin. Irish dramatist, literary critic, a socialist spokesman, & leading figure in the 20th century theater. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. He accepted the honor but refused the money.

"I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people."

— George Bernard Shaw

"He hasn't an enemy in the world, & none of his friends like him"
— Oscar Wilde

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/socsig/shawintro.html
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/gbshaw.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jshaw.htm

1860 -- United States is dissolved.

NOW, THEREFORE, WE, Norton I, by the Grace of God Emperor of the Thirty-three states & the multitude of Territories of the United States of America, do hereby dissolve the Republic of the United States, & it is hereby dissolved; & all laws made from & after this date, either by the National Congress or any State Legislature, shall be null & of no effect.

All Governors, & all other persons in authority, shall maintain order by enforcing the heretofore existing laws & regulations until the necessary alterations can be effected. Given under our hand & seal, at Headquarters, San Francisco, this 26th day of July, 1860.
http://www.zpub.com/sf/history/nort.html

1865 -- Belgium: Patrick Francis Healy is first black awarded PhD, in Louvain.


1874 -- US: Order given that friendly Indians are to remain in fixed camps at Wichita Agency, Oklahoma (Indian) Territory, & answer periodic roll calls.


1875 -- Carl Jung is very, very Jung. Swiss psychiatrist, a founding father of modern depth psychology. Jung's most famous concept, the collective unconscious, has had deep influence not only in psychology but also in philosophy & the arts.


1875 -- US: Black Bart, a poet with a fondness for Wells Fargo, robs his first stagecoach, the Sonora to Milton stage, in Calaveras County, California — the same stage line he targets in his last heist (his 29th) in 1883.

"I've labored long & hard for bread,
For honor & for riches,
But on my corns too long you've tred
You fine-haired sons of bitches."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bolles

1877 -- US: 30 workers killed at the "Battle of the Viaduct" by federal troops, Chicago. It's what cops & troops do best, keeping its own citizens in line & a nation's workers docile to the needs of the political & business powers that be.

"Battle of the Viaduct" — U.S. troops of the Second Militia Regiment & police attacked about 5,000 workers at Halsted & 16th Street in Chicago. "Turner Hall Raid" — Police raided the hall during a meeting of the German Furniture Workers, killed Mr. Tessman, wounded many others.

A judge later finds the police guilty of preventing the workers from exercizing their right to freedom of speech & assembly.

A grim reminder that the true function of police & an army is not issuing traffic tickets, playing officer friendly or defending the shores from terrorism, but keeping its own citizens in line & a nation's workers docile to the needs of the political & business powers that be.
http://www.communitywalk.com/location/battle_of_the_viaduct/strikesriots/113228

1885 -- André Maurois lives. Biographer, novelist, essayist, children´s writer. Best known for romantic style biographies: Shelley, Byron, Balzac, Proust & others. The Quest for Proust is considered by many his finest.
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/amaurois.htm



1893 -- Dada artist / revolutionary George Grosz lives, Berlin. George Grosz, Daily Bleed Saint 2006-2010
Dada graphic satirist, reflected nihilist forces in pre-Hitler Germany. Claimed art had no use but as propaganda for the still-building revolution of everyday life.
... show details

"My art was to be a gun & a sword; my drawing pens I declared to be empty straws as long as they did not take part in the fight for freedom."

Art: George Grosz, Republican Automatons, 1920. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTgrosz.htm

1894 -- Aldous Huxley lives, Godalming, Surrey, England. English novelist/critic/pacifist, grandson of the prominent biologist T.H. Huxley, brother of Julian Huxley, who was a biologist.

Aldous Huxley's production was wide. Besides novels he published travel books, histories, poems, plays, & essays on philosophy, arts, sociology, religion & morals.

His best known book is Brave New World, a pessimistic response to H.G. Wells' scientific optimisms. Wrote an influential study of consciousness expansion through mescaline, The Doors of Perception (see Jim Morrison); later a guru among California hippies, Huxley used LSD & showed interest in Hindu philosophy & mysticism.

"Chastity: the most unnatural of the sexual perversions."

       — Aldous Huxley

http://somaweb.org/

1895 -- Robert Graves lives, London. English poet, classical scholar, novelist, & critic who wrote over 120 books. Met American poet Laura Riding, with whom he established the Seizin Press & published the journal Epilogue (1925-38).

Such successful novels as I, Claudius finance his first love, poetry:
"Prose books are the show dogs I breed & sell to support my cat."

http://www.robertgraves.org/

1909 -- Spain: Beginning of the Tragic Week, la Semena Tragica, in Barcelona, involving regionalists, anarchists, radicals & dissatisfied workers, marked by a General Strike & violent confrontations, protesting government mobilization of troops to fight in Morocco, & also its backwards labor policies.

... show details

Churches & convents are attacked & burned, priests wounded & killed, along with police. Martial law is declared, which lasts for months. The government turns decisively away from reform. The failures of this week lead anarchists & labor activists to form the CNT, in an attempt to build an organization capable of transcending these futile protest actions.

During the week of July 26 to August 1, Barcelona presents the spectacle of a full-scale insurrection, a largely spontaneous uprising with little guidance from union or radical leaders. As Anselmo Lorenzo wrote to Tarrida del Marmol in London:

"What is happening here is amazing. A social revolution has broken out in Barcelona & it has been started by the people. No one instigated it. No one has led it. Neither the Liberals nor Catalan Nationalists, nor Republicans, nor Socialists, nor Anarchists."

Had he known all the details, Lorenzo might have added that the civil government in the city had collapsed.

— Murray Bookchin, The Spanish Anarchists
http://struggle.ws/spain/tragic_book.html

1912 -- US: Battle of Mucklow, West Virginia, in a coal strike.
[Sources]



1924 -- Germany: Leaving Alexander Berkman in Berlin, Emma Goldman travels to the Netherlands; speaks at the celebration organized by Dutch anti-militarist & anarchist Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis for the 20th anniversary of the International Anti-Militarist Association.



1928 -- Italy: Il governo impone l'adozione del libro di testo unico di stato nelle scuole elementari, provvedimento essenziale per la fascistizzazione delle masse fin dalla più giovane età.
http://www.polyarchy.org/basta/crimini/sette.html


1933 -- US: Baseball's Joe Dimaggio ends 61 game hitting streak in Pacific Coast League.

"You can't aim a duck to death."

1934 -- "Little Nemo" cartoonist Winsor Mckay dies. Daily Bleed Saint, September 26, 2005-2008
American cartoonist of "Little Nemo" fame.

The artists of the fledgling animation industry give a testimonial dinner honoring Winsor McCay. During his speech, McCay reprimands the animators for their lack of artistic integrity.

"Animation should be an art, that is how I conceived it . . . but as I see what you fellows have done with it is making it into a trade . . . not an art, but a trade . . . bad luck."

— Winsor McCay

"By 1927-28, audiences would groan when a cartoon came on. Animation had worn out its welcome. The novelty was gone. If sound hadn't come in, the cartoon would have vanished."



— Shamus Culhane

1935 -- US: Bill Bailey (1910-1995) & several seamen board the German passenger ship Bremen in New York harbor & rip the Nazi flag from its mast before a crowd of some 5,000 people. The group battled 100 detectives, 150 uniformed police & 25 mounted police & members of the ship's crew to get to the flag.


1936 -- Spain: With the attempted fascist takeover of Spain faltering, Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Adolf Hitler agrees to provide aid to the insurgents. The Comintern finally agrees to seek aid for the democratic Republic (after sending its gold reserves to Russia). Four days hence, Germany & Italy provide planes to airlift fascist troops from Africa to Spain. (The United States, France & England, of course, refuse to aid the democratic Republican government.)
[Sources]
http://libraries.ucsd.edu/speccoll/visfront/chron.html
http://libraries.ucsd.edu/speccoll/visfront/vizindex.html
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj84/durgan.htm



1937 -- Hélio Oiticica (1937-1980) lives. Brazilian painter, performance artist, & anarquista. Hélio Oiticica, grandson of Jose Oiticica / Brasil Created environmental, participatory events—among them Parangolé (1964), Tropicália (1967) & Apocalipopótesis (1968)— either in art centres or in the street.

One of the leading exhibitors in the exhibition Nova objetividade brasileira (Rio de Janeiro, 1967), which reactivated Brazil's avant-garde.

See The Grove Dictionary of Art,
http://www.artnet.com/ag/fulltextsearch.asp?searchstring=H%C3%A9lio%20Oiticica

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9lio_Oiticica
http://www.artnet.com/ag/fulltextsearch.asp?searchstring=Oiticica
http://www.absolutearts.com/masters/o/oiticica-helio.html
http://www.ephemanar.net/juillet25.html
http://www.artbr.com.br/casa/biografias/helio/
http://www.aestufa.com.br/canibalia/html/oiticica.html
http://art-contemporain.eu.org/base/chronologie/1550.html
http://www.comartevirtual.com.br/oiticica.htm




1943 -- Mick Jagger, lead singer for the Rolling Stones lives.


1943 -- Italy: Il capo di stato maggiore dell'esercito, generale Mario Roatta, preannuncia in una circolare l'uso di misure repressive contro chiunque manifesti il suo pensiero attraverso assembramenti e cortei. Risultato : prima della fine del mese di luglio le cosiddette forze dell'ordine faranno 83 morti, 308 feriti e arresteranno oltre 1500 persone. E' iniziato lo statismo post-fascista. La repressione continua.
http://www.polyarchy.org/basta/crimini/dieci.html


1947 -- US: National Security Act consolidates armed forces in newly created Department of Defense, replacing the War Department. It further establishes the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), & numerous other secret "black budget" government agencies outside public review or control. This marks what Gore Vidal argues is the beginning of American Global Empire-building, an end of the American Republic with the gutting of the consitution, & the slide toward an American police state.

http://www.meaus.com/perpetual-war-gore-vidal.htm



1947 -- Jaime Semprun lives, Paris.

The Ghost of Theory:

In one of his last essays, a deeply pessimistic Jaime Semprun proclaims the death of "radical theory" & recommends "a good handbook on gardening" to help ride out the "shipwreck of industrial society".

http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20100811174311652
http://libcom.org/news/jaime-semprun-has-died-12082010
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Semprun

1948 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Buck Harry Truman issues Executive Order 9981, directing equality of opportunity in armed forces.


1948 -- Spain: Raul Carballeira commits suicide rather than be captured in Montjuich during an encounter with hundreds of killers operating under Qrlintela, head of the Social Brigade, plus Guardia Civil & the "greys" (uniformed police).

Carballeira is one of many libertarian youngsters aiding in getting illegal anarchist publications distributed; 'Juventud Libre', 'Tierra y Libertad', 'Solidaridad Obrera' & 'Ruta,' for example, turned up regularly in Madrid & Barcelona. Source: http://struggle.ws/spain/ruta.html

1952 -- Argentina: Death of Eva Duarte...better known as Evita Perón.

They hated her, they hate her, the well-fed — for being poor, a woman, & presumptious...

They loved her, they love her, the unloved — through her mouth they spoke their minds & curses.

Bankers, businessmen, & landowners sigh with relief.

With Evita dead, President Perón is a knife without a cutting blade.

http://web.archive.org...eduardo.galeano/memoria.del.fuego/19520726.htm

1953 -- Cuba: A young radical & baseball player, Fidel Castro (a pro prospect), leads an unsuccessful guerrilla raid on Moncada Barracks.sometimes incorrectly spelled Moncado Amongst the 61 rebels killed in the celebrated Castro-led attack is the anarquista Boris Luis Santa Coloma.
[Background, click here]



1955 -- Ted Allen throws a record 72 consecutive horseshoe ringers. Dead ringer for Allen Young?


1965 -- US: Martin Luther King, Jr., leads protests against housing segregation, Chicago.


1966 -- The Temptations' dance & show at the Fillmore Auditorium; Grand opening of the Straight Theatre at Haight & Cole. Formerly the Haight Theatre, now a hippie-run alternative to the commercially successful Fillmore Auditorium & Avalon Ballroom.
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/rock.html


1967 -- US: Algiers Motel Incident. The resulting Detroit Riots (40 deaths, 2,000 injuries, & 5,000 left homeless) involve 4,700 federal paratroopers & 8,000 National Guardsmen to quell the disturbances.

THE ALGIERS MOTEL INCIDENT
John Hersey

From the author of Hiroshima — the shameful story of racial murder in 1967 Detroit.

... show details "Hersey's extremely careful & cogent account of the Algiers Motel incident does not suggest that [the law enforcement officers involved] conspired to do anything... It suggests strongly the contrary: that they were doing what came naturally to them, & doing it with gusto." — Edgar Z. Friedenberg, New York Review of Books "Hersey's book is based on months of personal investigation & contains evidence never before made public. He ransacked every available piece of documentation. Thus armed, he tried to work out a tentative scenario of events &, more important, used his data to build up what may be the truest picture yet of the white policeman's role in the ghettos... His collage of interviews, fact, & intuition... jells into a forceful dossier against racism in the U.S. system of justice." — R.A. Sokolov, Newsweek Thirty years ago, three black men were killed & nine other people brutally beaten by, as John Hersey describes it in The Algiers Motel Incident, an "aggregate of Detroit police, Michigan State Troopers, National Guardsmen, & private guards who had been directed to the scene." Responding to a telephoned report of sniping, the police group invaded the Algiers Motel & interrogated 10 black men & two white women, none of whom were armed, for an hour. By the time the interrogators left, three men had been shot to death & the others, including the women, beaten.

John Hersey won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for his first novel, A Bell for Adano. Wrote Hiroshima & many novels, including The Wall, The Child Buyer, Under the Eye of the Storm, & Blues. Died in 1993.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Algiers_Motel_Incident

1967 -- French president DeGaulle endorses Quebec independence from Canada.


1968 -- South Vietnam: Truong Dinh Dzu, runner-up in a recent presidential election, sentenced to five years in prison for "conduct detrimental to the people."


1968 -- México: Beginning of several days of student riots in México City; police arrest over a thousand & kill dozens.


1979 -- US: Native American Leonard Peltier recaptured six days after his escape from prison.
http://www.leonardpeltier.net/


1979 -- Rolling Stone says promotional videotapes are "the newest selling tool in rock." Mentions David Bowie's "Boys & Keep Swinging" & Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."
http://www.notbored.org/bowie.html



1981 -- US: Sauteed Pork Barrel? The Himmler Maneuver saves the life of NY mayor Ed Koch who nearly chokes to death in Chinatown's Sun Lok Yee restaurant, where waiters say he was talking non-stop while stuffing pork in his face.

Not wishing to alienate Jewish voters, Hizzoner claims a piece of sautéed watercress caused the problem.

Another marinated politician.

(Inquiring minds want to know: Just who is this Himmler fellow & why did he make such a foolish move?)

1983 -- US: Congress approves $2.6 billion for MX missile production.


1984 -- Ed "Psycho" Gein dies.



1985 -- US: Fredy Perlman (1934-1985) dies, Detroit, Michigan.
Printer, dramatist, organizer, scholar, backyard gardener, theorist, musician & anti-authoritarian activist.

Daily Bleed Saint 20 August

A great part of his theoretical & practical struggle was an investigation of this process of alienation & fragmentation by which human beings surrender their autonomy & participate in their own suppression.

See the Anarchist Encyclopedia page, http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/PerlmanFredy.htm

1985 -- France: Roger Monclin (1903?-1985) dies, St Laurent-du-Var. Pacifist & propagandist, orator & writer. Member of "Ligue des Combattants de la Paix," &, in 1931, with Victor Méric, the antimilitarist "La Patrie Humaine." Author of numerous works, including, Les crimes des conseils de guerre (1934), Gaston Couté, poète maudit (1962), & Les Damnés de la guerre (1979). anarchiste
http://www.ephemanar.net/juillet26.html
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/misc/@fotos.htm


1988 -- "We may be incompetent, we may be stupid, we may have bad taste ... But we are not crooks." — Disney's Jeff Katzenberg telling striking writers why they should be more trusting of producers

1990 -- US: Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) becomes law.


1991 -- US: Pee Yuu? Paul Reubens is arrested in Florida, for exposing himself at an adult movie theater.



1998 -- US: BleedMeister's #1 son races in 2nd 1998 Soapbox Derby at Woodland Park. Hundreds watch in awe as he wipes out, up, over the course & wins big. Hopefully.



2000 -- US: "Emma Goldman: The Anarchist Guest" premiers at San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Castro Theatre. Admission free. Ditto the screening at UC Theatre on August 3.

Canada, 2000, video, 42 min., English Director: Coleman Romalis
This documentary fondly portrays a feisty Jewish woman whose disdain for authoritarianism was best expressed by the phrase "If I can' t dance, it's not my revolution."

Canadian sociologist & filmmaker Coleman Romalis explores Emma's political life as well as her remarkably liberated private life, including her often stormy relationships with younger men.

J. Edgar Hoover pronounced Emma Goldman "the most dangerous anarchist in this country" after he arrested & deported her to Russia in 1919. She continued her crusades in Russia, Spain & Britain before finally settling in Canada.

http://www.sfjff.org/

2009 -- Sandy Paton dies. Sandy cofounded Folk-Legacy records, & was a great fan of the Daily Bleed from the early beginnings.
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=122722&messages=67
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/sep/30/sandy-paton-obituary


2010 -- Australia: British explorer David de Rothschild & a small team of environmentalists land in Sydney in their 60-foot boat built of plastic bottles. Set sail from San Francisco at the end of March, touring the “great Pacific garbage patch” (twice the size of Texas) enroute. This ecological disaster, which has killed millions of seabirds & marine mammals, inspired Rothschild to build a boat made of 12,500 plastic bottles & other recycled materials.
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Plastic-Boats-Pacific-Adventure/1
http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/index.php/trash-day-in-sydney--7300/
http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Voyage-of-the-Plastiki


3000 --

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Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World, which warned of a mindless, materialistic existence a modernized society could produce, & in the 'Foreword' of the 1946 edition, he said that he believed that only through radical decentralization & a politics that was "Kropotkinesque & cooperative" could the dangers of modern society be escaped.

— Huxley archive

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