NOVEMBER 3 — ARMANDO PEREZ
Slain New York City community, social justice activist.
NOVEMBER 3 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
U.S.: ELECTION DAY. Belgium: ST. HUBERT’S DAY,celebrated with deer
hunt in medieval costume. Communion wafers stamped with hunting
horns were given to the dogs before hunt. Ancient Rome: ISIS CULT.
Feasting & licentious celebration of restoration of Osiris.
ALSO ON NOVEMBER 3 IN HISTORY…
1755 — Massachusetts offers £20 bounty for scalps
of female and male Indians under age 12.
1883 — U.S. Supreme Court decides Native Americans are “aliens.”
1926 — American sharpshooter Annie Oakley dies, Greenville, Ohio.
1957 — Wilhelm Reich dies in prison (won’t stop sale of orgone accumulators).
1979 — Five radicals killed by KKK/Nazis, later exonerated, Greensboro, N.C.
NOVEMBER 2 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS ALL SOULS DAY. Cheshire, England: SOUL CAKER’S PLAY, featuring King
George, The Dragon, An Old Woman, The Turk, Doctor Quack, Hobby
Horse, and Beelzebub. Brittany: Beginning of “THE BLACK MONTHS.”
Sicily: Good little girls and boys get sweets and toys from their ances-
tors on DEAD RELATIVES DAY. SADIE HAWKINS DAY. DEBUNKING DAY.
ALSO ON NOVEMBER 2 IN HISTORY
1811 — Weavers and knitters smash machines at Sutton and Ashfield, England.
1847 — Direct Action theorist Georges Sorel born, Cherbourg, Normandy, France.
1950 — British socialist playwright George Bernard Shaw dies, Ayot St. Laurence.
1961 — American humorist James Thurber dies, New York City.
1979 — Political bank robber Jacques Mesrine machine-gunned by flics, Paris.
NOVEMBER 1 — EDWARD SAID
Palestinian activist, scholar, literary critic.
“It is part of morality not to be at home in one’s home.”
NOVEMBER 1 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
U.S.: DAYLIGHT SAVINGS ends. ALL SAINTS/ALL HALLOWS DAY. OLD CELTIC
NEW YEAR. England: Tradition of SOUL-CAKING, door-to-door begging
for cakes in remembrance of the dead. Originally soulers were the poor
and the cakes an exchange for prayers for the departed. Bonfires and
incessant ringing of church bells. GRAVEYARDS DAY.
Mexico: DAY OF THE DEAD.
ALSO ON NOVEMBER 1 IN HISTORY…
1787 — African Free School opens, New York City.
1836 — Seminole resistance to removal begins.
1871 — American antiwar writer Stephen Crane born, Newark, New Jersey.
1872 — Susan B. Anthony and her sisters arrested for registering to vote.
1879 — Thomas Alva Edison gets patent for electric light.
1907 — Alfred Jarry dies, Paris, France; a suicide?
1935 — Palestinian activist, literary scholar Edward Said born, Jerusalem.
OCTOBER 31 — STUDS TERKEL
American labor, oral historian, “common man” proponent.
OCTOBER 31 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS… HALLOWEEN. Druids’ SAMHAIN, Autumn sun festival. Ancient Roman
FEAST TO POMONA. Druids held human sacrifices and prayers…
ALL HALLOWS EVE, 10th century. ALL SAINTS EVE. Human sacrifice be-
came cakes left out for the dead, thrown into the fire in the
morning. In Brittany all wore black, etc. Old Celtic NEW YEAR’S EVE.
Struggle between old and new years. FESTIVAL OF INNER WORLDS.
ALSO ON OCTOBER 31 IN HISTORY…
1517 — Martin Luther launches Reformation, Wittenburg, Germany.
1795 — Renowned British lyric poet John Keats born, London, England.
1927 — Kemal Ataturk abolishes the fez, “emblem of ignorance, fanaticism.”
1961 — Uncle Joe Stalin’s body removed from public display in Red Square.
1984 — Indian prime minster Indira Gandhi assassinated in her garden, New Delhi.
2008 — American oral historian, labor journalist Studs Terkel dies, Chicago, Illinois.
OCTOBER 30 — CLIFFORD GEERTZ
Radical American cultural anthropologist, anti-colonialist.
“There is an Indian story — at least I heard it as an Indian story — about an Englishman who, having been told that the world rested on a platform which rested on the back of an elephant which rested in turn on the back of a turtle, asked (perhaps he was an ethnographer; it is the way they behave), what did the turtle rest on? Another turtle. And that turtle? ‘Ah, Sahib, after that it is turtles all the way down’” – Clifford Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures
OCTOBER 30 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Chan Kom, Mexico: At midnight the ANGELITOS, spirits of dead children,
come. Doors are decorated with flowers to welcome them.
Offerings of food are left for them and they stay the night. DEVIL’S NIGHT. COVENANT OF GRACE DAY. LIQUOR IS QUICKER DAY.
ALSO ON OCTOBER 30 IN HISTORY…
1838 — Oberlin College becomes first in U.S. to admit women students.
1871 — French “pure” poet Paul Valéry born, Sète, France.
1885 — American poet, fascist-symp Ezra Pound born, Hailey, Idaho.
1938 — Martians land at Grover’s Mill, New Jersey & start “War of the Worlds.”
1958 — Boris Pasternak bows to Soviet pressure, refuses Nobel Literature award.
2006 — Radical cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz dies, Philadelphia, PA.
OCTOBER 29 — TERRY SOUTHERN
Inspired American black-humorist, beat-era social rebel.
Still from Easy Rider, co-written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern.
OCTOBER 29 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Iroquois FEAST OF THE DEAD: Held once every twelve years, the dead
are reinterred and honored, with a huge common grave dug and lined
with beaver skins. CANDY IS DANDY DAY.
ALSO ON OCTOBER 29 IN HISTORY…
1618 — British adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh executed for treason, London.
1897 — Land ownership and wealth theorist Henry George dies, New York City.
1901 — Leon Czolgosz electrocuted for assassination of U.S. President McKinley.
1929 — Pandemonium on Wall Street as stocks crash, capitalism in crisis.
1964 — Star of India and other gems stolen from Natural History Museum, NYC.
1995 — American underground satirist, writer Terry Southern dies, New York City.
OCTOBER 28 — CAMILO CIENFUEGOS
Most beloved of the “barbudos” Cuban revolutionaries.
OCTOBER 28 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
England, Italy, and elsewhere: FEAST OF SAINTS SIMON AND JUDE, saints
long confused and entangled with Simeon and Judas. Simeon is
considered a goblin-saint or saint of witches. Christian observances
and occult ritual compete on this day, probably due to proximity to Samhain / Halloween. FOLLY DAY.
OCTOBER 20 — ARTHUR RIMBAUD
Gay poet, gun runner, anarchist activist.
“I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; garlands from window to window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance.”
OCTOBER 20 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Bahai‘i: BIRTH OF THE B‘AB. FEAST OF NO EXCUSE FOR A FEAST.
ALSO ON OCTOBER 20 IN HISTORY…
1854 — Gay French poet, gunrunner Arthur Rimbaud born, Charleville, France.
1859 — American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey born, Burlington, Vermont.
1874 — Modernist composer Charles Ives born, Danbury, Connecticut.
1890 — British adventurer Sir Richard Francis Burton dies, Trieste, Italy.
1918 — Germans accept U.S. peace terms, ending World War I.
1926 — American socialist leader Eugene Debs dies, Chicago, Illinois.
1947 — U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigation of the entertainment industry.
OCTOBER 19 — LU XUN
Famed Chinese writer of rebellion and revolution.
OCTOBER 19 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
FEAST OF THE WICKED SCAM. LAILAT UL QADR.
ALSO ON OCTOBER 19 IN HISTORY…
1433 — Metaphysical giant Marsilio Ficino born, Figline, Florentice Republic.
1745 — Irish satirist and scatological critic Jonathan Swift dies, Dublin, Ireland.
1781 — Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown; world turned upside down.
1862 — Auguste Lumière, French film pioneer, born.
1895 — Architect and culture critic Lewis Mumford born, Flushing, New York.
1899 — Guatemalan novelist Miguel Angel Asturias born, Guatemala City.
1936 — Chinese revolutionist, writer Lu Xun dies, Shanghai.
1983 — Grenadan leader Maurice Bishop killed in internal political coup, Grenada.
1987 — “Black Monday” stock market crash, world-wide.
OCTOBER 18 — DIGNA OCHOA
Mexican human rights activist, martyr.
OCTOBER 18 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Kent, England: GREAT HORN FAIR. Merrymakers wear horns on their
heads, cross-dress and lash each other with evergreen boughs.
ALASKA DAY. FESTIVAL OF POETIC TERRORISM.
ALSO ON OCTOBER 18 IN HISTORY
1839 — Hollow Earth theorist Cyrus Reed Teed (Prophet Koresh) born.
1859 — French philosopher Henri Bergson born.
1870 — Buddhist philosopher D. T. Suzuki born.
1893 — Suffragist leader Lucy Stone dies, Boston, Massachusetts.
1895 — Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth founded in Washington.
1898 — Puerto Rico becomes U.S. colony, ceded from Spain.
1901 — Furor erupts over U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt’s invitation
for White House dinner to Black leader Booker T. Washington.
1929 — English government declares Canadian women legally to be “persons.”
1973 — Cartoonist Walt Kelly, creator of “Pogo” dies, Hollywood, California.
Still from The Wicker Man, directed by Robin Hardy, 1973.
Anyone who ever perused the mountainous video selection at the old Mondo Kim’s store in the East Village, when it still existed, can guess that most of the folks who worked there acquired about a PhD’s worth of knowledge in cult obscurities and arcane movie trivia. Who in the city could be qualified, in that case, to try their hand as curators and start an ongoing series of film screenings dedicated to sleeper hits from the ’70s and long-lost psychedelic gems? Named after the store’s rental department, where the collective’s founding members probably absorbed thousands of hours of warped cassette tapes, The Third Floor is a group of ex-Kim’s employees with the simply stated mission of “presenting to you, the general public, movies we like.”
On Saturday, October 30, the organization will team with 92YTribeca to present “Night of the Wicker Man,” a celebration of Robin Hardy’s 1973 pagan horror classic set on the fictional Scottish island of Summerisle. Following a screening of the original cut, the British director will deliver a Q&A on the making of The Wicker Man and screen teaser footage from The Wicker Tree, a sequel starring Christopher Lee that he shot over the summer. As if this weren’t enough for even the biggest Wickermaniacs, bands Wooden Shjips, Effi Briest, and Silver Summit will be in attendance to perform interpretations of songs, poetry, and rituals from Paul Giovanni’s original score. To cap off the evening, Spectators will take part in a costume party and a dance around a May Pole to the step of DJs spinning acid folk and psychedelic rock.
For those of you who need a refresher, here is the trailer for the original Wicker Man–not to be confused with the Hollywood remake starring Nicolas Cage:
Night of the Wicker Man
October 30, 2009 at 92YTribeca
200 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013
All ages. Bring your favorite animal mask or a flower crown or two.
Click here for tickets to the 7pm screening and following music event.
Click here for the Midnight screening and preceding music event.
OCTOBER 17 — HENRI DE SAINT-SIMON
French utopian theorist, ruined aristocrat, proto-socialist.
Philippe Joseph Machereau, Saint-Simonian Temple and City, 1832. Architectural plan by the Saint-Simonian commune founded in the Parisian neighborhood of Ménilmontant, following the writer’s death. After the first few staircases were built, the project was brought to a halt by the French police, who arrested the movement’s leaders.
OCTOBER 17 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
SWEETEST DAY. Japan: KANNAME-SAI HARVEST FESTIVAL. BLACK POETRY DAY.
Isle of Ely, England: ST. AUDREY’S (origin of “Tawdry”) Fair.
ALSO ON OCTOBER 17 IN HISTORY…
1711 — America’s first published Black poet, Jupiter Hammon, born.
1760 — French utopian theorist Henri Saint-Simon born, Paris, France.
1889 — Russian radical critic Nikolay Chernyshevsky dies, Viluisk, Siberia.
1920 — John Reed dies in Moscow, Soviet Union and is buried in Kremlin Wall.
1931 — Gangster Al Capone sentenced to eleven years for tax evasion.
