Category Archives for SAINTS

Oct. 21 Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – ANTE CILIGA


OCTOBER 21 — ANTE CILIGA
Croatian born Left-Communist, anti-Stalinist theorist.

OCTOBER 21 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
FESTIVAL OF PARLOR SHAMANISM.

ALSO ON OCTOBER 21 IN HISTORY…
1772 — British Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge born, Devon, England.
1888 — Spiritualist Margaret Fox confesses spirit rappings were a put-on.
1917 — Jazz great Dizzy Gillespie born.
1929 — Utopian novelist Ursula K. LeGuin born.
1967 — Yippies exorcise evil spirits from Pentagon, causing it to visibly levitate.
1969 — American Beat writer Jack Kerouac dies, St. Petersburg, Florida.
1984 — French filmmaker François Truffaut dies.
1992 — Croatian council communist writer, theorist Ante Ciliga dies, Zagreb.

Excerpted from The 2010 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

Oct. 8 Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – Jacques Derrida


OCTOBER 8 — JACQUES DERRIDA
French Deconstruction theorist, human-rights activist.

ALSO ON OCTOBER 8 IN HISTORY…
1820 — Haitian despot Henri Christophe, former slave, shoots himself.
1871 — Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicks over a lantern, igniting the great Chicago Fire.
1933 — “Sanctuary” movement founder James Corbett born, Casper, Wyoming.
1967 — Revolutionist Ernesto “Che” Guevara dies, Bolivian highlands.
1969 — Haymarket police statue bombed again, Chicago, Illinois.
2004 — Philosopher, deconstruction-theorist Jacques Derrida dies, Paris, France.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

Oct. 7 Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – JOE HILL


OCTOBER 7 — JOE HILL
Wobbly martyr of American Zerowork movement.

ALSO ON OCTOBER 7 IN HISTORY…
1826 — First railroad in U.S., 3 miles long, completed in Massachusetts.
1849 — American mystery writer Edgar Allan Poe dies, Baltimore, Maryland.
1879 — American labor organizer, martyr Joe Hill born, Gävle, Sweden.
1897 — Elijah Muhammed of Nation of Islam (Black Muslims) born, Sandersville, GA.
1927 — R. D. Laing, Scottish radical anti-psychiatrist, born, Glasgow, Scotland.
1929 — French lettrist and situationist theorist Gil Wolman born, Paris, France.
1934 — Imamu Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) born, Newark, New Jersey.
1943 — British lesbian novelist Radclyffe Hall dies, Rye, East Sussex.
1969 — Haymarket Statue (memorial to police slain in 1886) bombed, Chicago.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

Sept. 28 Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – VICTOR JARA


SEPTEMBER 28 —VICTOR JARA
Chilean song-writer, activist, martyr of Pinochet coup.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qXkXTaZiXg&feature=related

SEPTEMBER 28 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Jewish: YOM KIPPUR. Old China: CONFUCIUS DAY.
Egypt: FEAST OF KHEPERA, the Beetle God.
Huichol, Mexico: FESTIVAL OF WAWATSARI, God of Deer Peyote.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 28 IN HISTORY…
551 BC — Chinese sage Confucius born.
1573 — Painter of Italian street life Caravaggio born, Milan, Italy.
1820 — Marxist Comrade Friedrich Engels born, Barmen, Rhine, Prussia.
1864 — First Communist International formed, London, England.
1891 — American novelist Herman Melville dies, New York City.
1938 — Chilean folksinger Victor Jara born, Lonquen, Chile.
1966 — French surrealist André Breton dies, Paris, France.
1978 — Pope John Paul I dies suspiciously after only 34 days in office.

Sept. 26 Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – CYPRIAN EKWENSI


SEPTEMBER 26 — CYPRIAN EKWENSI
Nigerian short story writer, committed journalist.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 26 IN HISTORY…
1774 — Johnny “Appleseed” Chapman born, Leominster, Massachusetts.
1869 — “Little Nemo” cartoonist Winsor McCay born, Woodstock, Canada.
1874 — American photographer Lewis Hine born, Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
1899 — Nazi-synp existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger born, Messkirch.
1921 — Nigerian short-story writer, journalist Cyprian Ekwensi born, Minna.

SEPTEMBER 26, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
India: THE FEAST OF LAMPS, a memorial to the dead in which every lamp is lighted, a harvest feast is eaten, cakes are placed at crossroads for evil spirits to eat. Jains polish their jewelry, attend worship and have books blessed.
Gabon: FEAST OF ZAME YE MEBEGE, God of Narcotics.


Above: “Little Nemo in Slumberland” by Winsor McCay. Click to enlarge.

Dorian Cope on the Sept. 9, 1971 Attica State Prison Riot

From Dorian Cope’s On This Deity:

Thirty-nine years ago today, the white authorities of Attica State prison in the so-called liberal state of New York – desperate to restore some semblance of order amongst the concentration camp-like conditions they’d imposed upon their primarily Afro-American inmates – embarked on a murderous and racist policing so brutal, so terminal and so careless of the lives of the innocent hostages, that their end-game proved to the world what Malcolm X had declared to be the case on page 271 of his autobiography: that the so-called liberal white Northerner was not one iota less racist than his Southern opposite number, just more devious in the manner in which he controlled “the Negro.”

Continues: On This Deity

Joe Strummer and Robert Fripp in conversation (Musician magazine, 1981)

Joe Strummer: wikipedia
Robert Fripp: wikipedia

Note: At the time of this conversation, Joe Strummer was 28 and Robert Fripp was 35.

RUDE BOYS: An Interview with Joe Strummer and Robert Fripp
by Vic Garbarini
Originally published in Musician Magazine, June 1981

…

Musician: One of the main things you two have in common is the belief that music can actually change society. How can this happen?

Strummer: Because music goes directly to the head and heart of a human being. More directly and in more dimensions than the written word. And if that can’t change anybody, then there’s not a lot else that will. Music can hit as hard as if I hit you with a baseball bat, you know? But it’s not an overnight thing; you can’t expect everything to change quickly. I figure it’s an organic process. Insidious. Look how listening to all those hippie records has affected everybody in general: everybody feels looser about things now.

Fripp: I did a radio show in New York with Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats recently, and he said he didn’t believe rock and roll could change anything. And I said to him, I disagree. So he said, well, if you build up hope in Joe Bloggs in some slum in Northern Ireland, he’s just going to wind up disappointed. And I said, look, if there’s Joe Bloggs in his appalling social conditions in Northern Ireland with no hope, and that becomes Joe Bloggs at No. 8 in his appalling social conditions but with hope, you have two entirely different situations.

S: That’s right. Good point that.

F: Then it’s possible for the geezer at No. 10 to get some hope, too. And then it spreads up the street, and you have a community. Then you have a community. Then you’re talking about something which isn’t dramatic and exciting, but which contains the possibility of real change. It’s easy to miss because it’s essentially personal, and it’s very quiet. And like Joe says, it takes time.

M: Is it the music itself that can do this, or does it merely serve as a rallying point?

F: Both, really. It serves as a rallying point, but it can work more directly too. I think sometimes at a really good gig when there’s a certain quality in the music, a kind of liberation can take place, and you don’t go home and take quite as much crap from the news as you did before, because you’ve actually tasted a different quality of experience which changes how you think about things. So to a degree you’ve been liberated.

M: How did you both wind up choosing music as your means of expression? How were you feeling about things in general, or what made you decide it had to be a band? That there was something you needed or could accomplish through rock?

Continue reading →

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – JOHN WYCLIFFE


DECEMBER 31  —JOHN WYCLIFFE
Leader of the dangerous Lollards, 13th century English spiritual revolutionaries.

DECEMBER 31, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
NEW YEAR’S EVE. ANNUAL WORLD PEACE MEDITATION. In Germany, prowling demons & spirits of darkness must be routed this night by mummery & lots of noise. People used to dress in straw clothing with deerskin masks of animals & run through the streets, clanging bells & dragging chains.

Mobile, Alabama: COWBELLION HERD ESCAPADE & REVEL honors Michael Krafft, who founded mystic society, “Cowbellion de Rakin” in 1830 first of all the mystic societies and krewes which stage the Mardi Gras extravaganzas in Mobile and New Orleans.

JAPAN: NAMAHAGE. Men dressed as devils go door-to-door screaming “Any good-for-nothings here about?”

ALSO ON DECEMBER 31 IN HISTORY…
1320 —British religious radical reformer John Wycliffe born, Yorkshire, England.
1384 — Religious radical reformer John Wycliffe Dies, Lutterworth, Leicestershire.
1877 — French radical painter Gustave Courbet dies, Vevey, France.
1996 — Mayan shaman Lacandonista Chan k’in Viejo dies, Chiapas, Mexico.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective. The 2010 Autonomedia Calender is now available on the Autonomedia site.

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – VICTOR SERGE


DECEMBER 30 — VICTOR SERGE
Russian anarchist, anti-Stalinist, literary conspirator.

Farewell to Andrès Nin by Victor Serge

1921, Moscow. The echoes of the cannons of Kronstadt are still in people’s spirits. It’s hard to get used to the first white bread of the NEP. The great wounded Commune seems to be convalescing. On beautiful summer nights we stroll among the bustling crowd of the boulevards. The trees surround us with a shadowy coolness. All is dark, for there are still no streetlights. My companion has come from Barcelona, and before that Cairo. Delegate of the CNT to the Communist International. He is young, slim, with abundant curly hair, laughing eyes circled in gold, a beautifully timbered voice full of laughter and , already, with firmness. Andres Nin explains to me that he is not at all an anarchist, but rigorously syndicalist. Nothing utopian about his ideas, only the wish to conquer and organize production.

DECEMBER 30, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
FESTIVAL OF ENORMOUS CHANGES AT THE LAST MINUTE.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 30 IN HISTORY…
1865 — British imperialist apologist writer Rudyard Kipling born.
1890 — Russian anarchist writer Victor Serge born, Brussels, Belgium.
2006 — Vanquished Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein hanged, Baghdad.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective. The 2010 Autonomedia Calender is now available on the Autonomedia site.