listen, you will
hear the deafening song of the stars
a silence brilliant & ringing as ice
a lovesong, it seems, made out of no love
and no song,
and the earth here to hear it.

      — Tobey Hiller, "Night"

-- APRIL 4

DOROTHEA DIX
Advocate of humane treatment for so-called "mentally ill."

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Ancient Rome: FESTIVAL OF THE MAGNA OF PHRYGIA,
a reliquary embodied in a small meteorite. An ecstatic procession with the magna mater in a chariot drawn by lions, castrated priests leaping & dancing & gashing themselves to a din of Flutes, cymbals & drums.

---

1581 -- Queen Elizabeth dines on board the "Pelican," the ship in which Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the World, &, after dinner, knighted him.


1774 -- Asked on his deathbed if his mind is at ease Oliver Goldsmith, 45, replies: "No it is not." The poet, novelist, playwright, & member of Samuel Johnson's circle is regarded by friends, somewhat erroneously, as an oaf. Says Dr. Johnson:

"No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had."

1802 -- US: Dorothea Dix lives, Hampden, Maine.

We All Are Born Mad.
Some Remain So.

Reformist, who called attention to "the present state of Insane Persons confined . . . in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, & lashed into obedience!"

1812 -- England: Luddite Riots at Stockport; Mr Goodwin's steam-looms destroyed.
Source: [Luddite Chonology]


1819 -- US: William G. Greene lives. A cofounder of the Modern Times anarchist colony, founded in NY, along with Josiah Warren & Stephen Pearl Andrews.
See Kenneth Rexroth's chapter on Josiah Warren in Communalism
See also "The Lemonade Ocean & Modern Times" by Hakim Bey,
http://www.evolutionzone.com/kulturezone/bey/lemonade.ocean.and.modern.times.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_B._Greene

1841 -- US: Live like him? After serving only one month, William Henry Harrison sets sterling example — becoming the first American president to die in office. Cheap excuse to get out of work. But we wish more would be inspired by his exemplary example.



1846 -- Lautreamont lives, Montevideo. In French, see Raoul Vaneigem's "Isidore Ducasse et le Comte de Lautréamont dans les Poésies,"
http://library.nothingness.org/articles/all/fr/display/72



1862 -- Russia: Kropotkin during this month (I don't have exact day — ed.), finally leaves Irkutsk & returns to St. Petersburg.

Although he had left military service, Peter could not bring himself to leave government service. He became a member of the Central Statistical Committee. This position required very little work & allowed him to concentrate on work for the Geographic Society. He also enrolled in the university, but did not complete the requirements for graduation due to financial concerns.

1868 -- Japan: US troops again land in Japan during the Meiji Restoration (-May 12).


1870 -- US: Golden Gate Park established in Frisco, Californaia by City Order #800.

1871 -- France: Tentative establishment of Commune in Limoges; meanwhile, the army attacks the Commune of Marseilles.

Les Fédérés de la Commune menèrent des combats contre les troupes versaillaises, pendant lesquels Elisée Reclus est fait prisonnier, le 4 avril 1871. La Commune fut affaiblie, par la suite, dans cette lutte par les dissensions politiques et des erreurs sur le plan économique. Les troupes versaillaises entrèrent dans Paris, le 21 mai et mirent fin à la Commune par un véritable carnage : la Semaine Sanglante suivit du 22 au 28 mai.

http://lycee.reclus.free.fr/Communard.htm

1871 -- France: Paris Communards take the archbishop of Paris hostage.



1876 -- Maurice Vlaminck lives (d.1958). Artist & a founder of Fauvism. A racing cyclist as a young man. In 1900 he met Derain & began to paint seriously, earning his living by playing the violin. At this time he also contributed to anarchist magazines.

"Many modernists — including Pablo Picasso, Frantißek Kupka, Maurice Vlaminck, & Kees van Dongen — thought anarchist politics to be inherent in the idea of an artistic avant-garde & created new formal languages expressive of their desire to effect revolutionary changes in art & society. Yet while Fauvism, Cubism, & Orphism radically altered the art of this century, the social-esthetic theories that nurtured some of their most significant manifestations were discredited by the decline of the anarchist movement after 1914, the rightward swing of political discourse during & after the war, & the concurrent advent of a resolutely apolitical formalist art criticism. Thus a "revolutionary esthetics" — a "politics of form" — played a crucial role in the development of modern art in prewar France, but its significance was first suppressed & then forgotten." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_de_Vlaminck See also "Cubism, Futurism, Anarchism: The 'Aestheticism' of the "Action d'art" Group, 1906-1920" by Mark Antlif,f "Oxford Art Journal," Vol. 21, No. 2 (1998), pp. 101-120. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0142-6540(1998)21%3A2%3C101%3ACFAT'O%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kees_van_Dongen

1877 -- First home telephone installed.



1892 -- US: Jules Thomas (1839-1892) dies. A French Icarien, Parisian Communard, Blanquist. Thomas fled to NY, with the defeat of the Paris Commune, where he was a founder of the "Société des réfugiés de la Commune." It was here too that he became an anarchist following his reading of Peter Kropotkin.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/ThomasJules.htm


1892 -- Edith Södergran lives (1892-1923) . Pioneer of poetry in Swedish language in Finland, died of lung disease. Södergran had a significant impact on Nordic poetry, especially 1920s Finnish modernism. Comparable as a modernizer of poetry only to Katri Vala, Edith Södergran became one of the most loved Nordic writers.

"Jag längtar till landet som icke är,
ty allting som är, är jag trött att begära."

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/sodergra.htm

1892 -- Italy: Tiene, nella sede del “Consolato operaio” di Milano, una conferenza dal titolo “Socialismo legalitario e socialismo anarchico” dove chiarisce le posizioni critiche dell’anarchismo nei confronti del socialismo “riformista” giudicandolo autoritario e parlamentarista.
http://www.liceoparini.it/pariniweb/poesia/gori.htm


1893 -- Canada: Looney Tunes?? The new Ontario Legislature opens in Queen's Park, Toronto, built on the site of a lunatic asylum.



1894 -- France: In Paris during the trial of Emile Henry a bomb explodes at the Foyot restaurant. The libertarian writer Laurent Tailhade, who was there by chance, lost an eye in the explosion. The anarchist Louis Matha was suspected of being the author of the attack, but no proof could be found against him.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/emile.henry/


1896 -- Playwright Robert E. Sherwood (The Petrified Forest; Abe Lincoln in Illinois) lives, New Rochelle, New York.



1896 -- Tristan Tzara, French poet/essayist known mainly as the founder of Dada, lives, Moinesti, Romania.

http://www.peak.org/~dadaist/English/Graphics/tzara.html European Dada Archive
—, 1963 http://www.mital-u.ch/Dada/index.html dada zurich, chronicle by Tristan Tzara
http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/ International Dada Archive, U. Of Iowa
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rmutt/dictionary/

1900 -- Belgium: Near miss: Prince of Wales escapes anarchist assassination attempt. 16-year-old Jean-Baptiste Sipido takes two shots at the Prince in a Brussels railway station in protest against the Boer War. Apprehended, but acquitted 5 July.
Source: 'Calendar Riots'


1905 -- India: Earthquake in Kangra kills 370,000.


1912 -- France: Émile Armand assumes the editorship of "L’Anarchie", from April 4th, 1912 to September of this year.
See Armand's article, "A Visit to L'Anarchie," at the Stan Iverson Memorial Archives,
http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/library/

[Details / context]

1913 -- Edward Dowden dies in Dublin, Ireland. Shakespeare critic, Shelley scholar, Whitman discoverer & friend.


1914 -- Marguerite Duras lives (1914-1996), Gia Dinh, Indochina (Vietnam).

French novelist, representative of nouveau roman, screenwriter, scenarist, playwright, & film director, internationally known for her screenplays of Hiroshima Mon Amour, directed by Alain Resnais (1959) & India Song. She was also a member of the French Resistance during the German occupation. Other titles include The Sea Wall; The Ravishing of Lol Stein; Destroy, She Said.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/duras.htm

1914 -- US: Unemployed riot in Union Square, NYC.



1915 -- Blues guitarist Muddy Waters lives.
http://www.muddywaters.com/
http://www.thestore24.com/

1915 -- US: A blurb in the "New York Times" (April 4, 1915) lists a petition of bankruptcy filed against John Rompapas Books & Postcards at 325 Madison Street in New York.

John Rompapas founded Rabelais Press, a New York radical publishing house that funded the "Revolutionary Almanac", a journal edited by the notorious anarchist, Hippolyte Havel.

[Details / context]

1917 -- Russia: Lenin presents his April Theses to a Bolshevik committee, which rejects them (Apr. 17 NS); also the new government grants equality to Jews, for the first time in Russian history.


1919 -- The Bavarian Soviet Republic is proclaimed (-May 1)


1919 -- The Philippines demands independence from the US.


1922 -- Finally obtaining temporary German visas, Emma Goldman & Alexander Berkman travel to Berlin.



1928 -- Maya Angelou lives, St. Louis, Missouri. African-American poet whose autobiographical work explores economic, racial, & sexual oppression themes. Her first work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970), is followed by Gather Together in My Name (1974), The Heart of a Woman (1981), & All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986).

http://www.mayaangelou.com/ShortBio.html

1933 -- US: Dirigible Akron II crashes, killing 73 at the New Jersey coast, near where, four years later, the Hindenburg explodes & kills 36.


1937 -- England: In Bristol Emma Goldman speaks in the afternoon to a conference of ILP delegates & in the evening on "The Relation of the Church in Spain with Fascism" at a meeting arranged by the local ILP.

Also during this month in her correspondence with the Spanish comrades Emma criticizes the C.N.T. [Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo, the anarcho-syndicalist labor union, which is the largest union in Spain] for collaborating ('pajaros carpinteros') with the Communists & accepting Soviet support; publicly she remains an unwavering supporter.

1945 -- Daniel Cohn-Bendit lives to laugh at cops, Montaubanin (the south of France).

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/Bendit/benditbio.html
http://www.el-mundo.es/larevista/num132/textos/fue2.html