July 13-- COMPAY SEGUNDO
Cuban “Compadre,” musician, songwriter, free spirit.
JULY 13, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
*Swaziland: Reed Dance Day.
*Border of France and Spain: Festival of the Three Cows. The result of an ancient Basque blood feud in which French shepherds killed Spanish shepherds and were condemned to pay a blood tax in perpetuity, an elaborate ritual in which three cows are given to the Spanish Basques, followed by revelry.
ALSO ON JULY 13 IN HISTORY…
1787 — U.S. Congress outlaws slavery in Northwest Territories.
1954 — Mexican surrealist painter, activist Frida Kahlo dies, Coyoacán.
1986 — British painter, cut-up artist Brion Gysin dies, Paris, France.
2003 — Buena Vista Social Club guitarist Compay Segundo dies, Havana, Cuba.
Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective