Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 10:07:44 -0700 From: "David Brown, Recollection" <recall-AT-eskimo.com> Subject: Daily Bleed: 5/31 Walt Whitman Web version, easy readin', 55 of 'em: http://www.eskimo.com/~recall/bleed/0531.htm excerpts: MAY 31 WALT WHITMAN Singer of the Body Electric, America's finest poet. Ancient Rome: AMBARVALIA, no work; plows & tools wreathed in flowers. Silent processions, incense, chanting of priests, animal sacrifices to Ceres, Bacchus & others. Urns of the dead decked in flowers, followed by wine & noisy feasting. 1678 - Tax protester Lady Godiva rides naked through Coventry. http://www.orknet.co.uk/godiva/ 1761 - At his home, No. 6 Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, Oliver Goldsmith entertains Samuel Johnson at dinner--the start of a famous friendship. http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Johnson/ 1779 - By George!?: Beloved & Respected comrade Leader General Washington orders Iroquois suppressed. A scorched-earth policy, in which dozens of villages were burned, follows. Washington orders General John Sullivan to invade the Iroquois Confederacy in New York. Washington tells Sullivan his mission is the capture of as many prisoners of every age & sex as possible: "It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground & prevent their planting more." During the next six months Sullivan carries out the most ruthless scorched-earth policy in U.S. history. His army destroys 40 villages & burn thousands of fruit trees, vegetable gardens & an estimated 160,000 bushels of corn. 1819 - Walt Whitman lives (1819-1892). American poet, journalist, essayist & famous queer, best known for “Leaves of Grass” (1855), which has often been banned for "indecency". Worked as a nurse among Civil War wounded. The war affected him deeply, as reflected in “Democratic Vistas”. An inspiration to the Beats. "I am as bad as the worst, but thank God I am as good as the best." http://whitman.hypermart.net/ http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/wwhitman.htm 1836 - Jean-Baptiste Clement (1836-1903) lives, in Boulogne. Communard & author of the famous song "The Time of Cherries". See the “Daily Bleed”, http://www.eskimo.com/~recall/bleed/0223.htm for February 23, 1903. 1870 - E.J. DeSemdt patents the stuff that became the foundation of American culture: Asphalt. Got it's name when a test batch was incorrectly poured. A foreman screamed: "It's your ass & your fault!" About 55% of the surface area of a typical American city's core is paved with the stuff. You think Heroin, Cocaine, Meth, Crack, & Alcohol addictions are tough? Just try & take away the car keys. 1874 - Jean Marestan (1874-1951) lives. Belgian anarchist, pacifist & militant néo-Malthusian, writer. Contributed to Libertad's "L'Anarchie". Imprisoned during WWII as a "suspect intellectual". http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/library/aVisitToL'Anarchie.htm http://www.eskimo.com/~recall/bleed/sinners/EugeneHumbert.htm 1880 - League of American Wheelmen forms in Newport, Rhode Island. The first national bicycle society organized in the US. 1884 - Real Flake?: Crackpot health nut Kellogg gets patent for manufacture of corn flakes. 1887 - Saint-John Perse lives (1887-1975). French poet/diplomat, awarded the Nobel in 1960. Associated with Paul Valéry, Paul Claudel, & others of the “Nouvelle revue française”. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/perse.htm 1906 - Spain: In Madrid the young anarchist Mateo Morral threw a bomb at King Alphonso XIII's wedding party. ¡Tú fuiste en mi vida una llamarada Por tu negro verbo de Mateo Morral! ¡Por su dolor negro! ¡Por su alma enconada, Que estalló en las ruedas del Carro Real!... — excerpt, Rosa de Llamas by Valle-Inclán http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/findaids/historical/ferrer http://www.elpasajero.com/MATEOMOR.htm http://www.terra.es/personal2/chemalopez/hb.html http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/5422/harper.html 1912 - Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Henry 'Scoop' Jackson, US Senator from Boeing, lives. It is not true that "pooper scoopers" are named after him. After Mount St. Helens blew her top a lot of ash fell in the Ritzville, Washington area. The clean-up entailed digging a giant pit east of town & filling it with the fall-out. It soon became known as the "Scoop Jackson Memorial Ashhole." 1915 - Poet Judith Wright lives, Armidale Australia. 1921 - Sacco & Vanzetti trial begins. "Both Nick [Sacco] & I are anarchists -- the radical of the radical -- the black cats, the terrors of many, of all the bigots, exploitators, charlatans, fakers & oppressors. Consequently we are also the more slandered, misrepresented, misunderstood, & persecuted of all. After all we are socialists, as the social democrats, the socialists, the communists, & the IWW are all Socialists. The difference -- the fundamental one -- between us & all the other is that they are authoritarian while we are libertarian; they believe in a State or Government of their own; we believe in no State or Government." ---Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1927) 1940 - A memorial meeting for Emma Goldman is held at New York's Town Hall, presided over by Leonard Abbott; films of Goldman in Spain, Canada, & of her funeral are shown; speakers include Norman Thomas, Rudolf Rocker, Roger Baldwin, Harry Kelly, Carlo Tresca, Eliot White, Rose Pesotta of the ILGWU, Martin Gudell, Dorothy Rogers, & Harry Weinberger. 1946 - Rainer Werner Fassbinder lives. Controversial German director/playwright, attracted attention with politically committed & nonillusory work. Central themes were misuse of power & consequences of oppression. Fast living & fast working, he died of drug overdose age 36, on June 10, 1982. His death symbolically marks the end of the most experimental period of the German cinema since the 1920s. 1947 - Bleeder Henry W.Targowski lives, Nottingham, England. Visual poet, artist, archivist, web-weaver, media analyst, internet consultant, multimedia producer, editor, publisher, concrete poetry, stamp art, mail art, postal art, graphics, communications, culture, Nederlands Filmmakers Kooperatie, Mark/Space magazine, Festival of Future Possibilities, Alpha- Omega Show, Anachron Studios, Black Star Liner, Gondwana Music, Anachron Foundation, Panoptima, Upsetter magazine, psychedelics, cyberpunk. http://www.euro.net/mark-space/index.html 1951 - USSR: Russia claims inventing the television in 1907. "The Revolution will not be televised" — Gil Scott-Heron 1956 - Brendan Behan becomes a folk hero overnight, appearing, drunk & unintelligible, on a BBC television interview. http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/frasm/behan.htm 1958 - Dick Dale invents "surf music" with "Let's Go Trippin" for Dick heads. http://www.dickdale.com/ 1962 - Adolph Eichmann is hanged. Just doing his job. 1969 - “Rolling Stone” reports Frank Zappa is a lecturer on the college circuit. Gets $1,500 for speaking on such subjects as "Pigs, Ponies & Rock & Roll." http://members.tripod.com/~RATNUT/index.html 1973 - Greg Ruddue flew a paper airplane 1126 yards. http://www.cbc4kids.ca/general/the-lab/flights-of-fancy/archive.html 1982 - No 'Power to the People'?: Vancouver Island, Canada: "Direct Action" group blows up BC hydro power substation. 1986 - China: "18th day" of Chinese demonstations; 100,000(?) in Tienamen Square. -AT-nti-CopyRite 2001, until we say uncle, or something akin
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