July 7– Vladimir Mayakovsky
Russian Futurist poet, anti-Stalinist political subversive.
We order that the poets’ rights be revered:
-To enlarge the scope of the poet’s vocabulary with arbitrary and derivative words (Word-novelty).
-To feel an insurmountable hatred for the language existing before their time.
-To push with horror off their proud brow the Wreath of cheap fame that You have made from bathhouse switches.
-To stand on the rock of the word “we” amidst the sea of boos and outrage.And if for the time being the filthy stigmas of your “common sense” and “good taste” are still present in our lines, these same lines for the first time already glimmer with the Summer Lightning of the New Coming Beauty of the Self-sufficient (self-centered) Word.
From Mayakovsky’s Futurist Manifesto: A Slap in the Face of Public Taste
JULY 7, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
*Pamplona, Spain: Fiesta of San Fermin and the Running of the Bulls.
*Tanzania: SabaSaba Peasants Festival.
ALSO ON JULY 7 IN HISTORY…
1865 — Four accused with John Wilkes Booth in Lincoln assassination conspiracy hanged.
1893 — Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky born, Bagdadi, Georgia, Russia.
1919 — Radical American lawyer William Kunstler born, New York City.
2006 — Former Pink Floyd lead singer Syd Barrett dies, Cambridge, England.
Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective
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