Asger Jorn, Michael Moorcock, Áurea Cuadrado Castillón o Alberola, Nelly Roussel, James Laughlin, from The Daily Bleed: December 18, A Calendar Better Than Boiled Coffee! History Mom & Pop forgot to tell us about!

The songs of our ancestors are also the songs of our children. . .

DECEMBER 18

Asger Jorn

ASGER JORN

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

Danish COBRA painter, proto-situationist, prankster.

"Making petrified conditions dance by singing them their own tune . . . . . Don't call us, do it yourself!"

http://www.bopsecrets.org/
http://www.nothingness.org/SI/
http://switch.sjsu.edu/switch/sound/articles/wendt/folder4/ng441.htm
http://www.mital-u.ch/Dada/index.html
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rkeehan/

Oaxaca, Mexico: FIESTA OF THE VIRGIN OF THE LONELY. Apache dancers, amusement park rides, gambling & plenty of fireworks.

-236BCE -- Greece: Gay flute players in the Temple of Dionysus in Athens down tools & refuse to work until their food is improved.
Source: [Calendar Riots]

1118 -- Alfonso van Aragon occupies Saragossa on Almoraviden.

1679 -- John Dryden set upon by Earl of Rochester's minions, suspecting him of writing the "Essay on Satire," (actually by John Sheffield).

1737 -- Antonio Stradivari renowned violin-maker dies in Cremona, Italy.

1778 -- Joseph Grinaldi, "Greatest Clown in History", lives.

1829 -- Scientist Lamark dies.

1830 -- England: Trial of Swing Rioters, peasants & workers who fought for minimum wage.
http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/ruralife/swing.htm
http://www.fouronthefloor.com/Riot2001/Home.htm

1849 -- William Bond obtains first photograph of the Moon through a telescope.
http://www.netaxs.com/~mhmyers/moon.tn.html

1855 -- 250 Megabites of RAM?: Poet Samuel Rogers ("The Pleasures of Memory") dies in London, aged 72.

1865 -- US: Chattel slavery abolished. Ratification of 13th Amendment to US Constitution, ensuring that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude... shall exist within the United States." Wage-slavery thrives.

1870 -- Saki (H. H. Munro) lives, in Akyab, Burma. Royal Fusiliers member, British humorist (The Unbearuble Bassington), short story master.
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/saki.htm

1879 -- Artist Paul Klee lives, Munchen-Buchesee, Switzerland. Produces visual music.
PAUL KLEE 1997 SAINT
Swiss graphic artist & painter. "Art does not reproduce the visible. Art makes visible."

http://www.ibiblio.org/louvre/paint/auth/klee/

1902 -- Christopher Fry lives.

1905 -- US: Eugene Debs: “Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves.”
— From an address on Industrial Unionism delivered at Grand Central Palace. New York City, Dec. 18, 1905.

1917 -- US: National idiocy: 18th Amendment to the Constitution, requiring Prohibition, is submitted by Congress to the states for ratification. It will pass, & prohibition formally begins July 1, 1919.

1917 -- US: Black American actor, civil rights activist, political radical Ossie Davis lives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossie_Davis

1920 -- US: Reruns & Recounts? First public radio broadcast in US... Er, well, maybe...
The first broadcast in 1920 was definitely before 18 December:
"Broadcasting histories usually date the beginnings of American radio from November 2, 1920 when Pittsburgh’s KDKA inaugurated its broadcasts with updates on the presidential election returns."
I've also recently heard it asserted that KDKA was not the first, but I don't have details.
— BleedsterVan, Twisted History
http://www.twistedhistory.com/

1920 -- Russia: In Archangel, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman & others in a Museum expedition collect leftist & anarchist underground publications produced during the rule of the Czar.
The Expedition also obtains letters written by Nicholas Chaikovsky from the period of his provisional government leadership. Emma, at this point, is favorably impressed with the efficiency & integrity of Bolshevik operations in Archangel. Late in the month they return to Petrograd.

1922 -- Nelly Roussel dies. Free thinker, anarchiste, feminist. Partner of the sculptor Henri Godet.
Roussel worked with Paul Robin to spread néo-Malthusian ideas, opposing the prevalent ideology & laws which repressed contraception & its propaganda. Also closely associated with Marguerite Durand.

A beautiful & talented speaker, Roussel agitated throughout France, demanding complete freedom for women, founded on new relationships between the sexes. Among her writings: Paroles de combat et d'espoir (1919); Quelques lances rompues pour vos libertés; Trois conférences.

Women, she insisted, had far more in common than did men of different classes, because whatever their class, they shared a common oppression. Women were, in her view, still the “eternal victims.”
See Waelti-Walters, Jennifer & Steven C, Hause, (ed.), Feminisms of the Belle Eopque: A Historical & Literary Anthology, (University of Nebraska, 1994): Nelly Roussel, She Who Is Always Sacrificed; "The Freedom of Motherhood"; On Creating Women Citizens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelly_Roussel
http://www.ephemanar.net/decembre18.html

1922 -- Italy: In Turin, the fascists attack the "Chambre du Travail," set fire to the Circle of the Railwaymen, the Circle Karl Marx & the seat of the anarchicho paper L'Ordine Nuovo.
22 workmen, socialists, Communists & anarchists are assassinated. The anarchist Pietro Ferrero, secretary of the metallurgists union (F.I.O.M.) & organizer of the Councilist movement in the factories, is assassinated in atrocious manner — attached to a truck & dragged in the street.

Scontri a Torino fra fascisti e socialisti-comunisti. Il capo delle squadre fasciste afferma con orgoglio di aver provocato la morte di 22 persone.

Sources: [Crimini e Misfatti] & [Ephéméride anarchiste]

1929 -- Canada: Founding of the Workers' Unity League.

1939 -- England: Michael Moorcock, Nebula award-winning science fiction author, anarchist, lives.
As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, during the 1960s, Moorcock fostered the development of the New Wave in the UK & indirectly in the US.

Moorcock's most popular works are his Elric novels, the first Elric stories being a deliberate reversal of the cliches common in Tolkien-inspired fantasy adventure novels (which he despises; see his essay "Starship Stormtroopers").

He has collaborated with the British rock band Hawkwind; did an album (The New Worlds Fair by "Michael Moorcock & the Deep Fix," 1975); wrote the lyrics to "Black Blade," by the American band Blue Öyster Cult (he performed this song live with BÖC).

Moorcock was also a member of the Cienfuegos Anarchist Review collective.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock

1944 -- High Seas: US Destroyers "Hull," "Spence" & "Monaghan" sink in a typhoon, Philippines.

1944 -- US: The Supreme Court decides that Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu was indeed guilty of remaining in a military area contrary to the exclusion order. This case challenged the constitutionality of the entire exclusion process.
[Sources]

1946 -- Black rights activist Steve Biko lives. South African/Azanian leader of the Black Consciousness Movement; murdered by South African police in 1977.

1946 -- US: Damon Runyon's ashes scattered over Broadway by Eddie Rickenbacker, flying overhead in large transport plane.

1947 -- Filmster Steven Spielberg lives.

1956 -- Cuba: The survivors of the Granma are reunited in the Sierra Maestras.
http://web.archive.org...eduardo.galeano/memoria.del.fuego/index.php?mostrar=19561218

1963 -- Russia: African students protest against racial discrimination, Moscow.

1964 -- US negotiates a new Panama Canal Treaty (see 9 January).

1965 -- Kenneth LeBel jumps 17 barrels on ice skates. Why?

1968 -- At a Christmas Party called "An Alchemical Wedding" at the Underground Club in London, John Lennon & Yoko Ono appear — sort of. They're both onstage but they aren't visible. They're crawling inside a large white bag. This is the start of what Yoko terms "bag-ism."
http://bagism.com

1968 -- La ONU pide al Reino Unido que descolonice Gibraltar antes del 1 de octubre de 1969.
http://www.elmundo.es/larevista/num132/textos/crono.html

1969 -- England: Great Britain abolishes capital punishment. One of the last countries in Western Europe to do so.

1969 --

Áurea Cuadrado Castillón o Alberola (en honor de José Alberola) (b.1900) dies, Palma de Mallorca. Una libertaria de Ontiñena; Spanish anarquista militant, member of CNT & Mujeres Libre. In exile after the Spanish Revolution, in Cuba, the US & Mexico.

http://www.alasbarricadas.org/ateneovirtual/index.php?title=18_de_diciembre
http://anarcoefemerides.balearweb.net/post/90522
http://www.cazarabet.com/esi/14/#aurea
http://www.foro-ciudad.com/zaragoza/zaragoza/mensaje-5326774.html
http://www.estelnegre.org/documents/cuadrado/cuadrado.html

1970 -- US: Crop Duster? Underground nuke test in Nevada blows cloud of radioactive dust 8,000 feet in the air over Wyoming.

1971 -- England: Kate McLean, an "Anarchy Collective" member, is arrested & charged as a member of the "Stoke Newington Eight."
http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/meltzer/sp001591/app1.html http://www.spunk.org/texts/groups/agb/sp000540.txt

1972 -- Despite Beloved & Respected Comrade War Criminal (& Nobel Peace Prize recipient) Hank Kissinger's statement on 26 October that "peace" is at hand, the US launches heaviest air barrage of the entire Indochina war against North Vietnam.
Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Nixon later refers to this so-called "Christmas bombing" as "my terrible personal ordeal."

Probably missed part of a football game that day.

1972 -- Vietnam: Bach Mai hospital, bombed by the US.
A retreat by the United States from Vietnam would be a Communist victory, a victory of massive proportions & would lead to World War III.
— Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Dick M Nixon, May 1966 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/series/pt_10.html
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/New_World_Order/Vietnam_FinalBattle.html

1980 -- Northern Ireland: Hunger strike is called off after 7 weeks.

1989 -- Demonstrations in Romania.

1992 -- US: Two activists arrested in Des Moines, Iowa, for disrupting city council meeting to demand a civilian review board for charges of police racism & brutality.

1996 -- US: TV industry execs agree to adopt a ratings system with three levels.

1. "The pits."
2. "The worst."
3. "Rock bottom."

“Television is designed to arouse the most perverse, sadistic, acquisitive drives. I mean, a child’s television program is a real vision of hell, & it’s only because we are so used to these things that we pass them over. If any of the people who have had visions of hell, like Virgil or Dante or Homer, were to see these things it would scare them into fits."

— Kenneth Rexroth
http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/sociallie.htm

1997 --

James Laughlin dies.

THE KITCHEN CLOCK
How can we make it run backwards,
That taciturn white circle with
Its torpid black hands? We only
Touch the hands when standard
Time comes to shorten or daylight
Saving to lengthen our days. That
Clock is lazy; I'd like to throw
Eggs at it. But I don't want it
To go forward faster, as if it
Were drawn by death. Let it run
Gently backwards, pausing to
Greet happy times again: the
Day when the schoolboy wrote
His first poem; the day when
The first jonquil bloomed in
His little garden; the day when
His father tossed him into the
Lake without water-wings to
Prove to him he could swim.
"En arriere, ruckwaerts" & "in
Dietro;" those are your orders,
Lazy clock, until the spring
Breaks & it doesn't matter
What you do anymore.

James Laughlin, 83, Publisher of Revolutionary Writers

The New York Times. Friday, November 14, 1997
By MEL GUSSOW

James Laughlin, the fiercely independent publisher, editor & poet, who, as the founder & longtime head of New Directions, published many of the most consequential & revolutionary writers of his time, died Wednesday on the way to Sharon Hospital from his home in Norfolk, Conn. He was 83.

http://www.connectotel.com/marcus/laughlin.html

2001 -- US: Federal judge refuses Abu-Jamal's request for a new trial, upholding his 1982 conviction on first-degree murder charges. He does throw out Abu-Jamal's death sentence, however. Meanwhile, the City of Hate & the Phillie cops, who zealously serve themselves more than justice or its citizens, will spare no effort to have him executed.

2001 -- US: A federal judge tosses out Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence, Pa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumia_Abu-Jamal

2001 -- Kevin Spacey movie "The Shipping News" premiers, Canada.

2009 -- Poland: Arbeit macht frei ("Work makes you free") sign is stolen from Auschwitz concentration camp. Police sick sniffer dogs & detectives on the trail as appeals for its return are made by Israel & the European Union. Three days hence, Polish cops arrest five culprits & recover the sign that hung over the Nazi death camp where millions were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeit_macht_frei

3000 --

"The chief product
of an automated society
is a widespread
& deepening sense of boredom."

— Cyril Parkinson

3500 --

http://www.carpentersunionbc.com/Media/