APRIL 8

JACQUES BREL
Belgian-born wry, sardonic folksinger, composer.

Thailand & Japan: BUDDHA'S BIRTHDAY.
Children's holiday; dancing & the release of captive animals.

CUCKOO DAY (moveable feast): The hearing of the first cuckoo call of spring is a traditional excuse for taking the day off work & engaging instead in the more fruitful activity of toasting in the bird with 'cuckoo ale'.

ALL OVER AGAIN DAY.

563 -- [BC] This Budd's for you.

GAUTAMA SIDDHARTHA
The Buddha. He lives. Daily Bleed Saint 2003



1341 -- Petrarch crowned poet laureate, steps of capital in Rome.

1614 -- Death of Domenikos Theotokopoulos, known as "El Greco," painter.



1695 -- Johann Christian Gunther lives. Briefly studied medicine at Wittenberg; then, disinherited by his father in 1719, who opposed his poetical ambitions, he will compose his greatest work, Leonorenlieder, a confessional poem in which he pleads to his father for mercy.


1712 -- US: New York City slave revolt suppressed, 21 are executed.


1798 -- Ramón de la Sagra y Periz, anarchist, lives (1798-1871).


1819 -- Walter Scott begins dictating The Bride of Lammermoor as gallstones make the act of writing impossible.



1826 -- US: Secretary of State Henry Clay & Senator John Randolph, who accused Clay of striking a "corrupt bargain" to steal the 1824 Presidential election from Andrew Jackson, fight a duel in Virginia. Like most politicians, they both missed.


1864 -- US: 13th Amendment passes, abolishing slavery. Does not include wage slavery.


1871 -- Robert Louis Stevenson, 21, walks with his father & tells him he is abandoning a career in engineering for writing.
http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/46/frameset.html


1872 -- US: Colville Indian reservation created east of Columbia River; after white farmers pressure the government, a second reservation, on less arable land, is designated instead.



1873 -- Merdre! Merdre! Alfred Jarry lives. French poet, novelist, playwright, freelance scoundrel & author of Ubu Roi, a forerunner of the Theatre of Absurd. Among other accomplishments, was Pablo Picasso's weapon supplier (Picasso used the pistol to shoo away bores) & making his mark on 'Pataphysics' (the acceptance of every event in the universe as an extraordinary event). Died of alcoholism & tuberculosis. See 10 December & 1 November.
http://www.ralphmag.org/jarry.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Jarry

1877 -- Italy: In the township of Letino (Matese) the "Gang of Matese" hand the city clerk an official notice before giving a speech, burning land deeds, & heading off to liberate yet another town:

"We the undersigned declare to have occupied, arms in hand, the municipal building of Letino in the name of the social revolution."

— Carlo Cafiero, Errico Malatesta, Pietro Cesaré Ceccarelli

[Details / context]

1885 -- Panama: Yes, We Have No Ripe Bananas? US Troops invade, to "protect US interests."


1888 -- France: Launching of the daily newspaper of the possibilistes, " Le Parti ouvrier," which became a weekly magazine of the Allemanist tendency in 1890.

[Sources]


1893 -- Mary Pickford, (Gladys Mary Smith) actress, lives, Toronto, Canada.

Born: 4/8/1893
Died: 5/29/1979

All the village swains await
One dear lily-girl demure,
Saucy, dancing, cold & pure,
Elf who must return in state.

— Vachel Lindsay, TO MARY PICKFORD
MOVING PICTURE ACTRESS

1894 --

Raffaele Schiavina (1894-1987) lives. Schiavina collaborated on many anarchist newspapers (in Italian). He was imprisoned & later expelled from the "land of the free" in 1919 for anti-war activities. In Paris, he participated in the defense of Sacco & Vanzetti. Schiaviana was imprisoned (Italy) & harrassed (France) numerous times before returning to the US where he published, for 45 years, the weekly magazine "Adunata dei Refrattari" (longest lasting paper of the Italian-American anarchist movement). Among his noms de plume: Cesare; Nando; Michetta; Calibano; Max Sartin; Labor; Manhattanite; Bob; Juan Taro; X.Y.; R.S.; & M.S. See his Autobiographical Notes at the Kate Sharpley Library

1898 -- Yip Harburg, American lyricist, lives. Wrote "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."


1898 -- Maurice Bowra lives, Kiukiang, China. Among his Greek translations is Pindar's Pythian Odes.


1902 -- Guatemala: Eruption of Santa Maria volcano leaves 1,000 dead.


1909 --   US: Federal court in Buffalo, NY invalidates the citizenship of Jacob A. Kersner, Emma Goldman's legal husband; threatens Goldman's claim to US citizenship & results in cancellation of Goldman's trip to Australia.



1909 -- American novelist John Fante lives.

Stricken with diabetes in 1955, its complications brought about blindness in 1978, but John continued to write by dictation. The key figure in Fante's resurrection was novelist/poet Charles Bukowski, who discovered one of his books in the public library while "starving & drinking & trying to be a writer," & who subsequently described Fante as his "god." By the late 1970s Bukowski was an international success & in a position to urge his publishers, Black Sparrow Press, to reissue Ask the Dust, "the finest novel written in all time." Despite his near invisibility, Fante still maintains a strong cult following. He remains a favorite of readers who enjoy bohemian urban fiction in the vein of Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, & Knut Hamsun. [In the last few years he is becoming widely recognized internationally as an outstanding 20th century novelist.] http://www.genordell.com/stores/spirit/JFante.htm Nice tribute page in Italian & English, http://abruzzo2000.com/fante/

1913 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Liberal Woodrow Wilson becomes the first US President since George Washington to appear before Congress.


1916 --    US: Emma Goldman gives a lecture on birth control at the New Star Casino, in NY, for which she is arrested & put on trial on the 20th.
[Details / context]


1926 --    England: Emma Goldman lectures in Norwich (part of a series on dramatists begun on March 25th).
[Details / context]



1928 -- The final chapter of Faulkner's The Sound & the Fury begins:

"The day dawned bleak & chill, a moving wall of grey light out of the north-east which, instead of dissolving into moisture, seemed to disintegrate into minute & venomous particles... She wore a stiff black straw hat perched upon her turban, & a maroon velvet cape with a border of mangy & anonymous fur above a dress of purple silk, & she stood in the door for a while with her myriad & sunken face lifted to the weather, & one gaunt hand flat-soled as the belly of a fish...."

http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/faulkner.html

1929 -- Ironic French folksinger Jacques Brel is alive & well.

Ken Knabb's "Georges Brassens & the French 'Renaissance of Song'" is an excellent introduction to the French folk/cabaret scene.
http://www.bopsecrets.org/recent/brassens.htm

See also Kenneth Rexroth's "Subversive Aspects of Popular Songs."
http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/songs.htm

http://www.spiderbomb.com/burgundy/editor.html

1937 -- Canada: United Auto Workers (UAW) strike at General Motors plant in Oshawa, Ontario, for recognition.


1937 -- Spain: In "Ideas," Jaime Balius' article entitled "Let's make revolution," he critically argues, "if [Companys] had a larger contingent of armed forces at his disposal, he would have the working class back in the capitalist harness."
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/DurrutiColumnEarly.htm
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/spain/sp001780/chap5.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8195/Durruti.html
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/spain/sp001780/chap1.html
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/spain/sp001780/chap1.html

1938 -- Big Band leader Joseph "King" Oliver dies.


1939 -- Trina Schart Hyman, author & illustrator, lives.


1939 --    Emma Goldman sails for Canada, arriving in Toronto on April 21, where she establishes residence.


1942 -- André Girard (known as Max Buhr) (1860-1942) dies. Anarchist militant & trade unionist. See the Anarchist Encyclopedia,
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/GirardAndre.htm


1945 -- France: Congress of the Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Libertarias (FIJL), in Toulouse (April 8-9th). Participants include Victor García, who assumes responsibility for publishing the journals "Ruta" & "Solidaridad Obrera", puis de secrétaire de la IJA (Jeunesse Anarchiste Internationale).
http://ytak.club.fr/aout4.html#victorgarcia


1946 -- League of Nations assembles for last time, passing a motion declaring themselves to be — dare we say — out of their league?



1948 -- Paul Delesalle (1870-1948) dies. French militant anarchist & revolutionary syndicalist.
http://ytak.club.fr/juillet4.html#29



1950 -- J. D. Salinger's best known short story, "For Esmé — With Love & Squalor" appears in "The New Yorker."

http://www.levity.com/corduroy/salinger.htm

1950 -- Spain: José Lluis Facerias, anti-fascist guerrilla, blows up the Lonja police station in Barcelona. Facerias was a veteran leader of the anarchist action groups, operating since the end of the Spanish Revolution in 1939.


1952 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Truman orders US Army to seize the nation's steel mills to avert a strike. The act was ruled to be illegal by the Supreme Court on 2 June. (See 27 August.)
[Sources]


1953 -- First major 3-D movie (Man in the Dark) premiers.


1956 -- US: Six recruits at Paris Island Marine Base drown when their drill instructor, Staff Sergeant Matthew McKeon, disciplined them for "minor disorderliness" by marching them into a tidal swamp. He taught 'em good.


1959 -- France: Felipe Alaiz de Pablo (1887-1959) dies, exiled in Paris. Anarchist & journalist. Director of Revista de Aragon, writer for El sol de Madrid, Heraldo de Aragon, La Revista Blanca, Solidaridad Obrera de Valencia & Sevilla. Published novels & works on anarchism & translations.
http://www.chez.com/ascasodurruti/Biographies/biograA.htm
http://www.elpasajero.com/alaiz.htm

1960 -- Folksinger Odetta appears at Carnegie Hall.


1966 -- US: Pole Cats? Last poll tax outlawed by Federal courts.


1966 -- US: The Jefferson Airplane opens at California Hall on Polk Street, Frisco.


1966 -- US: Show & Tell Time? "Time" magazine asks on its cover, "Is God Dead?."


1967 -- US: Nashville Black uprising, April 8-10th, following Carmichael's speech at Fisk University; (Tennessee House of Representatives calls for Carmichael's deportation from the state?)



1973 -- Spanish painter & communist Pablo Picasso dies, Mougins, Alpes-Maritimes, France.

Drink to me. — Picasso's last words

"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."

http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/picasso/destroy.htm

1973 -- US: A Harris Poll reports 51% of Americans support the American Indian Movement (AIM) protesters occupying Wounded Knee, South Dakota; 21% support the federal government.



1974 -- Hammerin' Hank Aaron hits 715th home run, beats Babe Ruth's baseball record. His run at the record got him much hate mail & numerous death threats by whites.

"Throwing a fastball to Henry Aaron is like trying to sneak the sun past a rooster."

— Curt Simmons, pitcher

[Details / context]

1977 -- Argentina: Adriana Gatti is today "disappeared" by government security forces.

Adriana (8-9 months pregnant) was previously kidnapped from her home on March 31, but was set free on that day. Today is not so fortuitous.

Her father, Gerardo Gatti, an Uruguayan anarchist labor militant, was also "disappeared" by the Argentine government in 1976 — tortured & put up for ransom before being murdered.

[Details / context]

1978 -- Gaston Leval dies. Son of a French Communard, anarchist syndicalist, combatant & historian of the Spanish Revolution of 1936.


1984 -- US: CinemaScope? With a nod to George Orwell, desperately trying to crawl his way back from a political oblivion unpresidented in American history, Dick "The Trickster" Nixon avows:

"It's the media's responsibility to examine the President with a microscope . . . but when they use a proctoscope, it's going to far."

1984 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader acting President Ronnie Reagan's Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger says "The United States is not mining the harbors of Nicaragua." — an indefensible lie.


1986 -- US: The Motion Picture Association of America rules that all movies that refer to illegal drugs will be given nothing below a PG-13 rating.


1988 -- The self-extinguishing armchair is invented. Gone but not forgotten!
Source: 'Calendar Riots'



1993 -- Sweden: Women in Black demonstrate in solidarity with their Serbian sisters, Lund.

We dressed in black. We knew that despair & pain needed to be transformed into political action. Our choice of black meant that we did not agree with everything that the Serbian regime was doing. We refused their language which promotes hate & death. We repeated:

"DO NOT SPEAK FOR US, WE WILL SPEAK FOR OURSELVES "

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/62/062.html
http://balkansnet.org/wib/archive.html
http://flag.blackened.net/agony/kosovo.html

1993 -- World Court orders Serbs to cease genocide in Bosnia. Why oppose genocide only in Bosnia you ask??


1993 -- Germany: "Libertarian Days" April 8-12th, held for the second time at the University of Frankfort, including the "Libertarian Book Fair."



1995 -- US: 1,000 Jobs With Justice Washington state activists in Bellingham, Tacoma, Olympia, Seattle & Yakima rally against the Republican "Contract With America."


2001 -- US: The head of National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations demands an apology Saturday from Jay Leno for his comment that Hizzoner Rudolph Giuliani is "fascist" for appointing a "decency" committee on art.

In a departure from his usual schtick, Leno on Thursday labeled Giuliani a "fascist" for appointing a decency commission to determine whether certain pieces of art are offensive.

The comedian compared Giuliani's efforts to Adolf Hitler's crusade to remove what he called "degenerate art" from German museums in the early years of the Third Reich.

[Details / context]

2002 -- US: Court Overturns Book Store Order.

The Colorado Supreme Court refused to order a bookstore to turn over its sales records to police, overturning a lower court decision demanding the records as part of a drug investigation.

The First Amendment & the state Constitution "protect an individual's fundamental right to purchase books anonymously, free from governmental interference,'' the court ruled.

The decision overturns a Denver district judge who ordered Tattered Cover Book Store owner Joyce Meskis to tell police who purchased two books on drug manufacturing from her store.

The Tattered Cover, one of the country's largest independent bookstores, was assisted in the case by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.

what about the Police who buy these books for 'official' business? if we were to make this information public, you can be sure they would have an apoplectic fit.

—— j godsey booksellers

3000 --

This Land is Their Land (Dave Van Ronk?) This land is their land, it is not our land From their rich apartments to their Cadillac carland From their Wall Street office to their Hollywood Starland This land is not for you & me. As I was walking that endless breadline My landlord gave me a one-week deadline & "Labor Action" ran a better headline This land is not for you & me. So take your slogan & kindly stow it If this was our land you'd never know it Let's join together & overthrow it This land is not for you & me. — From the Bosses Songbook, by Dick Ellington & Dave Van Ronk, circa 1964 [This is not recorded anywhere that I know of, but we sing it regularly at Dornan's Bar in Moose, Wyoming, where we have an excess of "Cadillac-carland" types. — ABB]

9003 -- [Women in Black Standing in Vigil at Westlake Park, Seattle]
http://www.scn.org/~wibnw/

---

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