Thursday, October 08, 2009

The Daily Bleed ...

. . . . Life
Has shrunk to dregs & rancor; the world is unclean.
Calm, calm. For this
Is the last despair. What gift has fate brought man
But dying? Now, vanquish in your disdain

Nature & the ugly force
That furtively shapes human ill, & the whole
Infinite futility of the universe.

— Giacomo Leopardi, "To Himself"

Daily Bleed in full,
http://www.recollectionbooks.com/bleed/1008.htm

Excerpts:

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

Ancient Athens: BEARING OF GREEN BRANCHES.
Boys in women's gowns, carrying the green boughs
of Bacchus, race from the temple of Bacchus to
temple of Minerva amid much confusion.

Columbus Day Observed, Thanksgiving (Canada).

______________________________
______________


1755 -- Canada: Charles Lawrence, British governor of
Nova Scotia, orders the French settlers in Acadia, whom
he saw as a security risk, deported if they do not sign an
unconditional oath of allegiance to the English crown.

Of the 10,000 in the area, 8,000 were expelled over the
next six years, as recorded in Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow's epic poem "Evangeline."

Americans have learned to appreciate a fiery style
of cooking called Cajun, & it's all because of Lawrence.

The Acadians scattered, & many of ended up in
Louisiana & were called Cajuns.

"Good food, of course, as an instrument of
humanitas does not terrify any Englishman
of any class.

Unless he crosses the Channel he never has an
opportunity to encounter it."

— Kenneth Rexroth, Assays

http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/RexrothKenneth.htm

1779 -- William Blake begins his studies at the
Royal Academy.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/saints/StBlakeWilliam.htm

William Blake "could diagnose the early symptoms of
the world ill because he saw them as signs that man was
being deprived of literally half his being. . . . He is in fact
concerned with the epic tragedy of mankind as it enters
an epoch of depersonalization unequalled in history"...

Rexroth's remark on William Blake's poems points to this
salutary role while at the same time revealing its limits:

"This is the art of providing the heart with images of its
alienation. If the individual or society can project the
dilemmas which reason cannot cope with, they can be
controlled if not mastered. This was Blake's function.

He saw the oncoming Business Civilization and prepared
a refuge, a symbolic fortress or haven."

— Ken Knabb, The Relevance of Rexroth
http://www.bopsecrets.org/PS/rexroth1.htm

1871 -- US: How Now Brown Cow?: Mrs. O'Leary's
cow starts Chicago Fire, in the evening

"The cow kicked it over, winked its eye, & said,
There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight."

1872 -- Novelist John Cowper Powys lives.

1906 -- Karl Nessler demonstrates first 'permanent wave'
for hair, in London.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/images/BB/youth.jpg

1907 -- Ireland: Two days of Black Rain begins.

I'm just a little black rain cloud

Hovering under the honey tree
I'm only a little black rain cloud
Pay no attention to little me...

I'm just floating around over the ground
Wondering where I will drip

— Lyrics from Winnie the Pooh

1919 -- US: General strike called to demand
Tom Mooney's release & amnesty for all
political prisoners.

1936 -- Emile Cottin dies, a combatant in the
international group of the anarchist Durruti Column
during the Spanish Revolution.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/DurrutiColumnEarly.htm

1945 -- Felix Salten, dies. He created the Bambi story.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/images/BB/bamvgodz.gif

1952 -- The Complete Book of Etiquette is first published.

Get your elbows off the table!

Ok, bub, no spam for you, you're going to bed
without your email!

1962 -- Work 'n' Party?: North Korea reports 100%
election turnout, in an amazing & dramatic "come from
behind victory," 100% vote for Workers' Party.

Party 100, People 0.

1965 -- Indonesia: Military begins massacring thousands
of suspected Communists. Ultimately 500,000 die. The
US embassy gives 5,000 names to terrorist death squads.

1967 -- Revolutionist Ernesto "Che" Guevara captured
& summarily executed, age 39, in the Bolivian highlands

1969 -- Pesky Pig?: Haymarket police statue bombed
again, Chicago.
http://recollectionbooks.com/anow/history/haymarket.html

1969 -- Daley Forecast?: Weathermen's "Days of Rage"
in Chicago.

1969 -- Uruguay: Disguised as a funeral procession, the Tupamaros
urban guerrilla organization enter & occupy the town of Pando,
robbing three banks of over 40 million pesos.

1980 -- Reggae giant Bob Marley collapses onstage during a Wailers
concert in Pittsburgh — the last one he ever performs.

1992 -- Thousands of people in the eastern U.S. witness a bright
fireball & hear a sonic boom. A 26-pound meteorite had fallen in
Peekskill, NY, & struck a 1980 Chevy Malibu sitting in its driveway.
It penetrated all the way through the trunk of the car, barely missing
the gas tank.

This is nothing compared to the head-on collisions caused
when drivers follow the instructions written in black letters
on the yellow jersies of local bicyclists as they ride
down two-lane roads:

Lane ends

———— >>

Merge Left

Damn Anarchists.

2000 -- US: 6th Annual International Indigenous People's
Day; Justice for Leonard Peltier & the First Nations, march
& rally, US/Canadian border, (Blaine, WA) at
Peace Arch Park.

2000 -- China: Over 1,000 protesters gather to oppose Hong
Kong's law prohibiting public demonstrations by more than
30 people without permission of Officer Friendlies.

2002: Hey Saddam, Beat This! US releases documents showing
it tested chemical & biological weapons in the open air in Alaska,
Hawaii, Alberta & Great Britain.

2003 -- US: California falls into the ocean. Yo! Arnold!

2004 -- France: Philosopher, deconstruction theorist
Jacques Derrida dies, Paris. Algerian-born, French intellectual.
Can there be any certainty in the death of Jacques Derrida?


============


"But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested
in... I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that
does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes
& kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men
all so good for nothing, & hardly any women at all — it is
very tiresome."

— Catherine Morland
in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (1817)

============

— anti-Pestilences 1997-3000, more or less

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