Tag Archives for henry miller

DOES IT HURT? Part 2: "Some other breed of man has won out."

Continuing from Does It Hurt?…

HenryMillerBresson

“I had the misfortune to be nourished by the dreams and visions of great Americans—the poets and seers. Some other breed of man has won out. This world which is in the making fills me with dread. I have seen it germinate; I can read it like a blue-print. It is not a world I want to live in. It is a world suited for monomaniacs obsessed with the idea of progress—a false progress, a progress which stinks. It is a world cluttered with useless objects which men and women, in order to be exploited and degraded, are taught to regard as useful. The dreamer whose dreams are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. Whatever does not lend itself to being bought and sold, whether in the realm of things, ideas, principles, dreams or hopes, is debarred. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist, the man of vision a criminal.”

Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945)

(thank you, Molly F. and Mark F.)

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint — Cornelius Castoriadis

castoriadis
DECEMBER 26 — CORNELIUS CASTORIADIS
Turkish-born French theorist of radical political autonomy.

“History does not happen to society: history is the self-deployment of society.”

DECEMBER 26 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
BOXING DAY. Ireland: DAY OF THE WREN. Masked revelers and musicians
go door-to-door asking for money. All-day feasting.
NATIONAL WHINER’S DAY. KWANZAA BEGINS.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 26 IN HISTORY…
1891 — Sex novelist Henry Miller born, New York, New York.
1893 — Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong born, Shaoshan, Hunan Province.
1894 — Black American novelist Jean Toomer born, Washington, DC.
1997 — Revolutionary political theorist Cornelius Castoriadis dies, Paris.

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 — IMRE NAGY

nagy
June 7 — IMRE NAGY
Hungarian Communist leader, hung for support of Uprising.

JUNE 7, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
*Southwold, England: Mayor’s Day. Dignitaries mountmerry-go-round horses, party.
* Festival of All Possible Worlds.

ALSO ON JUNE 7 IN HISTORY…
1843 — Mad German poet Friedrich Hölderlin dies, Tübingen, Germany.
1848 — French drop-out painter Paul Gauguin born, Paris, France.
1852 — American utopianist Hosea Ballou dies, Boston, Massachusetts.
1896 — Hungarian Communist leader, Uprising martyr Imre Nagy born, Kaposvar.
1980 — Free-living sex novelist Henry Miller dies, Big Sur, California.
1981 — Israel bombs suspected Iraqi nuclear installation.
2006 — Anthrax alert shuts down British House of Commons, London.

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