DECEMBER 29 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
ISLAMIC MUHARRAM. FESTIVAL OF AUTONOMOUS MEDIA.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 29 IN HISTORY…
1890 — Wounded Knee Massacre of Oglala Sioux, Pine Ridge, South Dakota.
1911 — Sun Yat Sen named first president of Republic of China.
1916 — Russian crackpot monk Rasputin assassinated.
1923 — Radical African historian Sheikh Anta Diop born, Caytou, Senegal.
1943 — Masses political cartoonist Art Young dies, New York City

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective. The 2010 Autonomedia Calender is now available on the Autonomedia site.

“Boredom is always counter-revolutionary. Always.”

DECEMBER 28 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Belgium: HOLY INNOCENTS’ DAY. Children play all sorts of tricks on their
elders, including stealing their keys & locking them up.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 28 IN HISTORY…
1895 — Lumiére brothers give first commercial showing of a movie.
1905 — American jazz master Earl “Fatha” Hines born, Duquesne, Pennsylvania.
1931 — Situationist theorist, “Mai ’68” leader Guy Debord born, Paris, France.
1945 — American social writer Theodore Dreiser dies, Los Angeles, California.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective. The 2010 Autonomedia Calender is now available on the Autonomedia site.

“Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind. In this sense the most insignificant writer can serve peace, where the most powerful tribunals can do nothing.”

DECEMBER 27 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
South Africa: FEAST OF MARIMBA, Goddess of Musical Happiness.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 27 IN HISTORY…
1867 — Treason of the Clerks author Julian Benda born, Paris, France.
1893 — Fourierist, socialist theorist Victor Considerant dies, Salins, Switzerland.
1917 — Dissenting American journalist John Hess born, Salt Lake Ciity, Utah.
1945 — “World Bank” scam concocted in aftermath of WWII.
1947 — First “Howdy Doody” television show broadcast.
1979 — Soviet invasion of Afghanistan commences.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective. The 2010 Autonomedia Calender is now available on the Autonomedia site.

“History does not happen to society: history is the self-deployment of society.”

DECEMBER 26 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
BOXING DAY. Ireland: DAY OF THE WREN. Masked revelers and musicians
go door-to-door asking for money. All-day feasting.
NATIONAL WHINER’S DAY. KWANZAA BEGINS.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 26 IN HISTORY…
1891 — Sex novelist Henry Miller born, New York, New York.
1893 — Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong born, Shaoshan, Hunan Province.
1894 — Black American novelist Jean Toomer born, Washington, DC.
1997 — Revolutionary political theorist Cornelius Castoriadis dies, Paris.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective. The 2010 Autonomedia Calender is now available on the Autonomedia site.

DECEMBER 25 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
CHRISTMAS. BIRTHDAY OF MITHRAS. Congo: CHILDREN’S DAY.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 25 IN HISTORY…
1621 — Massachusetts halts all sinful game-playing, confiscates children’s toys.
1899 — Film tough-guy Humphrey Bogart born, New York City.
1924 — “Twilight Zone” creator Rod Serling born, Binghamton, New York.
1977 —Comedic film great Charlie Chaplin dies, Vaud, Vevey, Switzerland.
1989 — Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu executed.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective. The 2010 Autonomedia Calender is now available on the Autonomedia site.

Susha Guppy, excerpt from Bakhtiari Migration documentary, following the Iranian tribe’s annual migration across the Zagros Mountains.

DECEMBER 24 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Throughout the Western world, December 24 – January 1, “THE HOLIDAYS,” is a period of continuous merrymaking and zerowork.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 24 IN HISTORY…
1865 — White racist organization Ku Klux Klan founded in Tennessee.
1903 — Box collage artist Joseph Cornell born, Nyack, New York.
1907 — Activist journalist I. F. “Izzy” Stone born, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1914 — Wilderness advocate John Muir dies, Los Angeles, California.
1935 —Writer, composer, singer, filmmaker Shusha Guppy born, Tehran, Iran.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective. The 2010 Autonomedia Calender is now available on the Autonomedia site.

“Butterly House,” Samuel Mockbee, Image by Tim Hursley.

DECEMBER 23 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Oaxaca, Mexico: FEAST OF THE RADISHES.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 23 IN HISTORY…
1776 — First American revolutionist Thomas Paine’s Crisis published.
1888 — Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh cuts off his own ear.
1944 — Architect to the poor Samuel Mockbee born, Meridian, Mississippi.
1948 — Japanese military leader Tojo hanged in Tokyo as war criminal.
1953 — 21 American P.O.W.s in Korea refuse to come home.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective. The 2010 Autonomedia Calender is now available on the Autonomedia site.

DECEMBER 15 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
U.S.: BILL OF RIGHTS DAY. First ten constitutional amendments became effective December 15, 1791.

14th-century London: MEN’S SOCIETY OF PIU held annual feast and song
festival to promote mirth, peace, honesty, joyousness and love.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 15 IN HISTORY…
1796 —American revolutionist “Mad Anthony” Wayne dies.
1890 — Sioux chief Sitting Bull killed by soldiers, South Dakota.
1944 — Environmentalist martyr Chico Mendes born, Pote Seco, Brazil.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective. The 2010 Autonomedia Calender is now available on the Autonomedia site.

DECEMBER 14 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
HALCYON DAYS begin, a two-week-long celebration when the fabled
bird calms the wind and waves. A time of calm and tranquility.
ALSO ON DECEMBER 14 IN HISTORY…
1503 — Crackpot prognosticator Nostradamus born.
1837 — British forces crush rebellion in Canada.
1852 — Marxist political theorist Daniel DeLeon born, Curaçao, West Indies.
1853 — Anarchist theorist Errico Malatesta born, Caserta, Italy.
1895 — French writer Paul Eluard born, Saint Denis, France.
1911 — Musical dadaist Spike Jones born, Long Beach, California.
1941 — Rock critic, Redstockings feminist Ellen Willis born, New York City1865 — British imperialist apologist writer Rudyard Kipling born.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective. The 2010 Autonomedia Calender is now available on the Autonomedia site

DECEMBER 12 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
JEWISH CHANNUKAH begins. Mexico: FIESTA OF THE VIRGIN OF GUADALUPE, greatest of the great Mexican fiestas. Not only was the Virgin the pa-
troness of the Mexican Revolution, but she has also absorbed the cult of
the Aztec goddess of the earth and of corn. Vestiges of the Aztec cere-
monies persist in this fiesta. Polynesia: FEAST OF REKAREKA, God of Pleas-
ure. Arizona: Hopi Indians begin eight-day-long FAREWELL TO AUTUMN.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 12 IN HISTORY
1531 — Virgin of Guadalupe appears to Indian boy, Tepeyac, Mexico.
1731 — Scientist Erasmus Darwin born, Nottinghamshire, England.
1812 — Death of Sacajawea, native guide for Lewis & Clark Expedition.
1821 — French writer Gustave Flaubert born, Rouen, France.
1863 — Norwegian painter and printmaker Edvard Munch born.
1885 — Russian proto-Constructivist Vladimir Tatlin born, Kharkiv, Russia.
1907 — Zulu King Dinizulu surrenders to British military forces, Natal.
1928 — Kyrgystani novelist, diplomat Ghingiz Aitmatov born, Sheker Tallaskoi.
1964 — “Solidarity” anarchist bookstore opens, Chicago, Illinois.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

DECEMBER 11 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Geneva, Switzerland: THE ESCALADE. Gala carnival commemorating December 11, 1602, when alarm bells rang in the middle of the night. The Savoyards were scaling the city walls. Men rushed to battle stations, women to the kitchens where they heated great pots of soup and water, which were dumped on the enemy with great success. Masquerades and revels.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 11 IN HISTORY…
1911 — Superb Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz born, Gamaliya, Cairo, Egypt.
1922 — American feminist writer, poet Grace Paley born, Bronx, New York City.
1927 — Soviet Commune in Canton, China is begun.
1928 — Cuban filmmaker Tomás Gutierrez Alea born, Havana.
1936 — Edward VIII abdicates English throne to marry a twice-divorced American.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

DECEMBER 10 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS…
Point Hope, Alaska: Merry Inuit FESTIVAL FOR THE SOULS OF DEAD WHALES. HUMAN RIGHTS DAY.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 10 IN HISTORY…
1805 — Journalist William Lloyd Garrison born, Newburyport, Massachusetts.
1830 — Poet, recluse Emily Dickinson born, Amherst, Massachusetts.
1865 — Haymarket martyr, anarchist August Spies born, Landeck, Germany.
1904 — Russian doctor Ivan Pavlov wins Nobel Prize for Physiology.
1924 — Founding of the Society for Human Rights, first Gay Rights organization.
1967 — Composer, singer Otis Redding dies in plane crash.
2007 — Pioneer world music ethnocologist Henrietta Yurchenco dies, New York City.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

“Mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle.”
–Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, 1902

DECEMBER 9 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Islamic: EID-AL-ADHA. Patzcuaro, Mexico: FIESTA OF THE MOTHER OF HEALTH. A Fishermens’ Fiesta, with much dancing, clowning and fireworks.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 9 IN HISTORY
1608 — British Paradise Lost epic writer John Milton born, London.
1842 — Russian anarchist theorist, “Red Prince” Pyotr Kropotkin born, Moscow.
1909 — Great Sioux leader Red Cloud dies, Pine Ridge, South Dakota.
1958 — Right-wing John Birch Society founded Indianapolis, Indiana.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

“Most people have no imagination. If they could imagine the sufferings of others, they would not make them suffer so.”

DECEMBER 1 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
INTERNATIONAL PRISONERS FOR PEACE DAY. WORLD AIDS DAY.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 1 IN HISTORY…
1893 — Munich “soviet” leader Ernst Toller born, Samotschin, Germany.
1919 — Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, and other radicals
deported from “Land of the Free,” go to Russia.
1935 — American filmmaker Woody Allen born, Brooklyn, New York.
1955 — Black American protester Rosa Parks refuses to go to back of bus.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

NOVEMBER 30 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS…
ST. ANDREW’S DAY. JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER DAY.

ALSO ON NOVEMBER 30 IN HISTORY…
1667 — Satirist Jonathan Swift born, Dublin, Ireland.
1835 — American humorist and social critic Mark Twain born, Florida, Missouri.
1900 — Irish wit, playwright, gay pioneer Oscar Wilde dies, Paris, France.
1930 — Rabble-rouser, labor leader Mother Jones dies, Silver Springs, Maryland.
1936 — Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman born, Worcester, Mass.
1999 — “Battle of Seattle” protests revivify anti-globalization movement.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

NOVEMBER 29 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
FESTIVAL OF GREAT EXPECTATIONS.

ALSO ON NOVEMBER 29 IN HISTORY…
1799 — American utopianist Amos Bronson Alcott born, Wolcott, Connecticut.
1832 — Writer, critic Louisa May Alcott born, Germantown, Pennsylvania.
1870 — State-run compulsory education initiated in England.
1943 — Stalin, Churchill, FDR meet in Tehran, carve up late-20th-century world.
1947 — German Green Party leader Petra Kelly born, Günzburg, Bavaria.
1969 — Australian artist and labor radical Norman Lindsay dies.
1980 — Dorothy Day, radical founder of Catholic Worker, dies, New York City.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

NOVEMBER 28 — EMMETT GROGAN
San Francisco “Diggers” leader, “A Life Played for Keeps.”

“Anything anybody can say about America is true.”

NOVEMBER 28 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
MAKE YOUR OWN HEAD DAY.

ALSO ON NOVEMBER 28 IN HISTORY…
1628 — Pilgrim’s Progress author John Bunyan born, Elstow, Bedfordshire.
1757 — English Romantic poet and radical William Blake born, London, England.
1820 — German radical, Karl Marx’s partner, Friedrich Engels born, Barmen.
1832 — American Hegelianist Benjamin Paul Blood born, Amsterdam, New York.
1902 — American communist anarchist journalist Kate Austin dies, Kingman, KS.
1912 — Albania declares independence from Turkey.
1944 — San Francisco “Diggers” founder Emmett Grogan born, Brooklyn, New York.
1960 — Black American novelist Richard Wright dies, Paris, France.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

“Events are the ephemera of history; they pass across its stage like fireflies, hardly glimpsed before they settle back into darkness and as often as not into oblivion. Every event, however brief, has to be sure a contribution to make, lights up some dark corner or even some wide vista of history. Nor it it only political history which benefits most, for every historical landscape–political, economic, social, even geographical–is illumined by the intermittent flare of the event.”

NOVEMBER 27 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Islamic EID AL ADHA. BUY NOTHING DAY. FESTIVAL OF SOLITUDE.

ALSO ON NOVEMBER 27 IN HISTORY
1907 — French literary and cultural critic Maurice Blanchot born, Quain, Saône.
1909 — American journalist James Agee born, Knoxville, Tennessee.
1985 — Revolutionary materialist historian Fernand Braudel dies, Paris, France.
1991 — Visionary polyartist Harry Smith dies, Chelsea Hotel, New York.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

NOVEMBER 26 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
U.S.: THANKSGIVING. BAHA’I: COVENANT DAY. FESTIVAL OF BIG TALK.

ALSO ON 26 IN HISTORY…
1792 — American anti-slavery and suffragist activist Sarah Grimke born.
1864 — Dutch poet, council communist Hermann Gorter born, Wormerveer.
1883 — Black emancipationist Sojourner Truth dies, Battle Creek, Michigan.
1969 — Military draft lottery established in U.S.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

NOVEMBER 25 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Islamic HAJJ begins. USE EVEN IF SEAL IS BROKEN DAY.
FESTIVAL OF SHADOW ECONOMIES. Suriname: INDEPENDENCE DAY (1975).

ALSO ON NOVEMBER 25 IN HISTORY
1904 — Chinese anarchist novelist Ba Jin born, Chengtu, Szechwan, China.
1957 — Radical Mexican muralist Diego Rivera dies, Mexico City, Mexico.
1968 — American socialist novelist, politician Upton Sinclair dies.
1970 — Right-wing gay Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima dies by his own hand.
1974 — British folk-pop composer Nick Drake dies, Tanworth-in-Arden, England.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

NOVEMBER 17 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
CREATIVE ALIENATION DAY. HERE TO GO DAY.

ALSO ON NOVEMBER 17 IN HISTORY
1624 — Mystic philosopher Jacob Boehme dies, Görlitz, Germany.
1637 — American rebel Anne Hutchinson, antinomian, brought to trial.
1734 — John Peter Zenger arrested for libels against colonial government.
1790 — August Möbius, topologist, born, Schulpforta, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.
1866 — Anarcha-feminist Voltairine de Cleyre born, Leslie, Michigan.
1875 — American Theosophical Society founded.
1896 — Sacramento, California reports first of dozens of sightings of huge myste-
rious airships appearing all over U.S. for the next six months.
1942 — Hobo organizer, cultural drop-out Ben Reitman dies, Chicago, Illinois.
1966 — 46,000 meteoroids fall on Arizona in twenty minutes.
1979 — Russian crackpot astro-physicist Immanuel Velikovsky dies.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

NOVEMBER 16 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS…
Côte d’Or: THREE DAY WINE FESTIVAL. RESIDENT ALIENS’ DAY.

ALSO ON NOVEMBER 16 IN HISTORY…
1747 — Knowles Riot in Boston; hundreds of sailors, laborers & free blacks
rise up against British Navy Press Gangs, temporarily ending impressment.
1811 — Mississippi River flows backwards (due to earthquake).
1885 — Mètis rebellion leader Louis Riel hanged, Assiniboia, Canada.
1889 — Playwright George S. Kaufman born, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
1895 — Russian cultural theorist Mikhail Bakhtin born, Orel, Russia.
1916 — Margaret Sanger arrested for her birth control clinic, Brownsville, NY.
1946 — Shamanarchist, psychonaut Terence McKenna born, Hotchkiss, Colorado.
1973 — Free Religionist Alan Watts dies, Mill Valley, California.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

NOVEMBER 15 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS…
Austria: ST. LEOPOLD’S DAY marks the beginning of new wine season
with drinking and festivities. FESTIVAL OF TOTAL SUBMISSION.

ALSO ON NOVEMBER 15 IN HISTORY…
1864 — Sherman burns Atlanta in U.S. Civil War.
1887 — American painter Georgia O’Keeffe born, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.
1887 — American poet Marianne Moore born, Kirkwood, Missouri.
1917 — Bolsheviks take Moscow, Russian Revolution succeeds.
1934 — New York Schoolish poet Ted Berrigan born, Providence, Rhode Island.
1969 — 250,000 march on Washington to protest war in Vietnam while U.S.
President “Tricky” Dick Nixon watches football on television.
1978 — Anthropologist and feminist rebel Margaret Mead dies, New York City

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

NOVEMBER 14 HOLIDAYS AND FESIVALS
Inuit ASKING FESTIVAL. On the first day young people blacken their faces
and make the rounds collecting food for the next day’s feast. At the
feast men and women ask each other for coveted possessions,
which are turned over. After a large percentage of village
property has changed hands, everyone dances.

ALSO ON NOVEMBER 14 IN HISTORY…
1831 — German Idealist philosopher G. W. F. Hegel dies, Berlin, Germany.
1843 — French feminist and socialist Flora Tristan dies.
1889 — American feminist journalist Nellie Bly sets out to circle the world.
1925 — Surrealist art exhibit opens in Paris, causing great scandal.
1938 — All Jews are expelled from German colleges as Nazis consolidate power.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

NOVEMBER 13 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Ancient Rome: FESTIVAL OF JUPITER. FAKE I.D. DAY.

ALSO ON NOVEMBER 13 IN HISTORY…
1829 — Sam Patch, famed stunt diver, dives to his death.
1850 — British novelist Robert Louis Stevenson born.
1903 — French painter, anarchist Camille Pissarro dies, Paris, France.
1914 — Caresse Crosby applies for patent for the backless brassiere.
1967 — Scandalously nude musical “Hair” opens in New York City.
1974 — Karen Silkwood killed during Keer-McGee Nuclear
Power Plant investigation; driving to meet reporter with documents
on safety violations, her car mysteriously crashes, documents disappear.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective.

NOVEMBER 12 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
OLD TEUTONIC YULE FEAST. BUSMAN’S HOLIDAY.

ALSO ON NOVEMBER 12 IN HISTORY…
1381 — Adolphus, Count of Cleves, founds “The Brotherhood of Fools.”
1660 — John Bunyan jailed for preaching without a license, Bedfordshire, England.
1815 — Women’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton born, Johnstown, NY.
1817 — Religious mystic Bahá’u'lláh born.
1845 — French progressive anarcho-communist Jules Guesde born, Paris, France.
1915 — French literary critic Roland Barthes born, Cherbourg, Manche, France.
1939 — Canadian-born Chinese revolutionist Norman Bethune dies, Heibei, China.
1990 — Iran gives Kuwaitis untilmatum to acquire Iraqi identity cards.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

NOVEMBER 11 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
U.S.: VETERAN’S DAY. MARTINMAS, one of four “quarter days” in Old
England when rents were paid. As celebration and consolation there
was feasting and drinking. Was also called “TEAR-STOMACH DAY.”Martin
was the patron of beggars, tavern keepers and wine growers, proba-
bly because his day coincides with the ancient “FEAST OF DIONYSUS.”
Netherlands: ELEVEN ELEVEN ELEVEN DAY.Tradition says
eleven is the number of fools. On the 11th day of the 11th month a
council of 11 begins organizing the next year’s carnival, “so anyone
can be as foolish as he or she cares to be for those three days.”

ALSO ON NOVEMBER 11 IN HISTORY
1647 — First American compulsory school law passed, Massachusetts.
1821 — Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky born, Moscow, Russia.
1831 — American slave rebellion leader Nat Turner hanged, Jerusalem, Virginia.
1880 — American feminist Lucretia Mott dies, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1887 — Haymarket martyrs executed, Chicago, Illinois.
1922 — American novelist Kurt Vonnegut born, Indianapolis, Indiana.
1942 — Jimi Hendrix, rock guitar wizard, born, Seattle, Washington.
1989 — Civil Rights Memorial dedicated in Montgomery, Alabama.
2004 — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat dies; succeeded by Mahmoud Abbas.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

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.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

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.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

“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.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

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.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

“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.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

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.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

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.

ALSO ON OCTOBER 28 IN HISTORY…
1726 — Irish satirist Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels published.
1958 — Pope John XXIII elected, Rome, leading to massive Catholic Church reform.
1959 — Cuban revolutionary Camilo Cienfuegos dies, at sea, near Cuba.
1962 — Nikita Krushchev agrees to halt Russian missle-silo construction in Cuba.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

“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 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.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

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.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

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 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.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

OCTOBER 16 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
DICTIONARY DAY. WORLD FOOD DAY.

ALSO ON OCTOBER 16 IN HISTORY
1793 — French monarch Marie Antoinette loses her head.
1815 — Napoleon Bonaparte exiled to St. Helena for life.
1854 — Gay Irish wit, playwright, essayist Oscar Wilde born, Dublin, Ireland.
1854 — Major French anarchist theorist Jean Grave born, Auvergne, France.
1859 — Abolitionist John Brown attacks Harper’s Ferry ammunitions depot.
1888 — American playwright Eugene O’Neill born, New York City.
1916 — Margaret Sanger opens first birth control clinic, New York City.
1927 — German Nobelist writer Günter Grass born, Danzig, Poland.
1934 — Long March begins for Chinese Communists.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

OCTOBER 15, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
ISRA’ & ME‘RAJ.
Saragossa, Spain: PARADE OF THE GIANTS (20-30 feet high)
and Dwarves (man-sized, with enormous heads), with Moorish
dances and fireworks.
MERTZ OF ALL POSSIBLE MERTZES.

ALSO ON OCTOBER 15 IN HISTORY…
1844 — Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche born, Röcken, Prussian Saxony.
1905 — First appearance of McCay’s ‘Little Nemo in Slumberland.”
1923 — Italian cyber-fabulist Italo Calvino born, Cuba.
1926 — French philosopher Michel Foucault born, Poitiers, Vienne.
1946 — German Nazi leader Hermann Goering commits suicide.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

OCTOBER 14, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Yorkshire, England: BLESSING THE FISH HARVEST.

ALSO ON OCTOBER 14 IN HISTORY…
1859 — Direct Action anarchist bandit Ravachol born, Saint Chamond, France.
1894 — Poet e.e. cummings born, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1917 — Chilean folk singer, culture hero Violeta Parra born, San Carlos, Ñuble.
1964 — Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. awarded Nobel Peace Prize.
1982 — Direct Action blows up Litton Systems plant in Toronto, Canada.
1991 — Burmese opposition figure Aung San Suu Kyi wins Nobel Peace Prize.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

OCTOBER 6, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
FESTIVAL OF SPIRITUAL ANARCHY.

ALSO ON OCTOBER 6 IN HISTORY…
1536 — William Tyndale burned at the stake for heresy.
1843 — William Morton demonstrates the effects of ether, Boston, Massachusetts.
1845 — First co-op store in US opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
1981 — President Anwar Sadat assassinated by Muslim activists, Egypt.
1984 — French filmmaker François Truffaut dies.
1992 — Croatian council communist writer, theorist Ante Ciliga dies, Zagreb.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

OCTOBER 5 — PHILIP BERRIGAN
Rebel American Catholic priest, antiwar activist.

OCTOBER 5, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
UNIVERSAL CHILDREN’S DAY. FEAST OF THE EMPIRE OF LIES.

ALSO ON OCTOBER 5 IN HISTORY…
1582 — Pope Gregory annuls 14 days, bringing calendar back in line with seasons.
1713 — Encyclopedist Denis Diderot born, Langres, France.
1789 —Declaration of The Rights of Man published.
1813 — Shawnee Chief Tecumseh killed in War of 1812.
1864 — Louis-Jean Lumière, film pioneer, born, Besançon, France.
1877 — Chief Joseph, Nez Percé chief, surrenders to U.S. troops.
1923 — Rebel priest, antiwar activist Phil Berrigan born, Two Harbors, Minnesota.
1934 — French surrealist filmmaker Jean Vigo dies, Paris, France. `

OCTOBER 4, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
London: CARRYING IN THE PUDDING, a ceremony dating to 1775, opens
pudding season with an eighty-pound meat pie, and songs such as “Ye
Pancakes and Toasted Cheese.”

ALSO ON OCTOBER 4 IN HISTORY…
1884 — First issue of Chicago anarchist paper, The Alarm.
1884 — Anarchist, bohemian Jun Tsuji born, Mukaiyanahara-machi, Asakusa-ku.
1928 — American civil rights pioneer James Forman born, Chicago, Illinois.
1967 — Radical American songwriter Woody Guthrie dies, New York City.
1970 — Rock singer Janis Joplin dies, drug overdose, Los Angeles, California.

OCTOBER 3, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Jewish SUKKOT begins. VIRUS APPRECIATION DAY. FEAST OF FREE SPIRITS.

ALSO ON OCTOBER 3 IN HISTORY…
1226 — Pantheistic social revolutionary Francis of Assisi dies, Assisi, Italy.
1838 — Chief Black Hawk, Native American leader, dies.
1896 — British socialist designer William Morris dies, Kelmscott House.
1900 — American novelist Thomas Wolfe born, Asheville, North Carolina.
1925 — American writer Gore Vidal born, West Point, New York.
1967 — Radical American folk singer Woody Guthrie dies, New York City.

OCTOBER 2, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Spain: FEAST OF GUARDIAN ANGELS. Bonfire on steps of church, sword
dancing and mock duel with constant interruptions from “Devil Fool”
and “Boy Angel.” Devil’s tail explodes at finale. The girls’ skirts are
pinned up to reveal panties.

ALSO ON OCTOBER 2 IN HISTORY…
1800 — Slave rebellion leader Nat Turner born, Southampton County, Virginia.
1803 — American brewer & patriot Samuel Adams dies, Boston, Massachusetts.
1869 — Indian independence fighter, pacifist theorist Mohandas K. Gandhi born.
1871 — Mormon leader Brigham Young arrested for polygamy.
1890 — Film and television comedic great Groucho Marx born, New York City.
1937 — Police raid Denver hotel, arrest Sam Caldwell for possession of two joints.
1968 — Massacre at Tlateloco; 500 rebel youths killed by Mexican troops.
2005 — Black American playwright August Wilson dies, Seattle, Washington.

OCTOBER 1, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
MAGIC CIRCLES DAY: Project spheres of consciousness.

ALSO ON OCTOBER 1 IN HISTORY…
1499 — Neo-Platonist occultist Marsilio Ficino dies, Florence, Italy.
1810 — First state fair in U.S. opens, Pittsfield Massachusetts.
1838 — Trail of Tears: 4,000 Cherokees die on forced march to Oklahoma.
1867 — Karl Marx publishes Das Kapital, Volume One.
1957 — Slogan “In God We Trust” first appears on U.S. paper currency.
1968 — Cerebralist vanguard post-artist Marcel Duchamp dies, Neuilly, Paris.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Yap Island, the Carolines, Micronesia: FESTIVAL OF TERETETH, Goddess of the Coconut Toddy.
India: FEAST OF SOMA, the God of Ambrosia and Immortality.
Cheyenne Indians, Western Plains states: FESTIVAL OF MAHEO, God of the Void.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 30 THROUGHOUT HISTORY…
1452 — First printed book published, Johannes Gutenberg’s Bible.
1765 — Mexican independence fighter José Maria Morelos born, Valladolid.
1949 — Mao Tse-Tung becomes Chairman of “People’s” Republic of China.
1966 — African nation of Botswana wins independence from Great Britain.

SEPTEMBER 22 — MARCEL MARCEAU
Masterful mime, French Resistance fighter.

SEPTEMBER 22, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Wiccan MABON. Autumnal Equinox: 21:29 UT
Inuit FESTIVAL OF THE SEAGODDESS. Sedna the Shaman goes to her abode at the bottom of the sea and makes a deal for good hunting weather.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 22 IN HISTORY…
1692 — Eight “witches” hanged, Salem, Massachusetts.
1792 — New calendar adopted in revolutionary France, with ten-day weeks,
three-week months, and 12-month years, starting at Year One.
1862 — Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abe Lincoln in U.S.
1991 — Huntington Library makes Dead Sea Scrolls public for the first time.
2007 — Famed French mime, Resistance fighter Marcel Marceau dies, Cahors, France.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Bashi, Congo: FESTIVAL OF NYAMUZINDA, God of Famine and Epidemics.
Belize: INDEPENDENCE DAY.
Siberia: FEAST OF KUODOR-GUP, God of Riches.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 21 IN HISTORY
1327 — British king Edward II murdered in prison with hot poker, Berkeley Castle.
1792 — Following years of revolution, French abolish the monarchy.
1827 — Angel Moroni visits Mormon-to-be Joseph Smith, drops off gold tablets.
1866 — H. G. Wells, author and futurist, born, Bromley, Kent, England.
1934 — Canadian poet, songwriter Leonard Cohen born, Montreal, Quebec.
1937 — J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit published.
1938 — Hurricane strikes Long Island, New York, kills an estimated 700 people.
1939 — Pro-Nazi Iron Guard assassinates Romanian Prime Minister Calinescu.
1976 — Former Salvador Allende-era Chilean socialist U.S. ambassador
Orlando Letelier fatally car-bombed in Washington D.C.
1993 — Russian President Boris Yeltsin suspends parliament & constitution.
2004 — Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People’s War and Maoist
Communist Centre of India merge, forming Communist Party of India (Maoist).

SEPTEMBER 20, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
EID AL FITR: Islamic RAMADAN ends.
Incas, in Peru: BIRTHDAY OF THE SUN.
All fires, including the sacred fire of the Temple of the Sun, have been
extinguished for three days. A priest, using a special mirror and conse-
crated cotton, helps the sun rekindle the temple flame, from which all
fires in the empire are relit. Animal sacrifices are made, followed by
eight days of feasting.
Poland: FEAST OF ZYWIE, goddess of longevity.
Scandinavia: FEAST OF ORLOG, Deity of Destiny.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 20 IN HISTORY
1878 — Social realist writer Upton Sinclair born, Baltimore, Maryland.
1885 — Early jazz great Jelly Roll Morton born, New Orleans, Louisiana..
1906 — Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle published.
1933 — American medical marijuana activist Tod Mikuriya born, Bucks County, PA.
1942 — Chilean coup martyr Charles Horman born, New York City.

EIDALFITR: Islamic RAMADANends. Incas, in Peru:BIRTHDAYOFTHESUN.
All fires, including the sacred fire of the Temple of the Sun, have been
extinguished for three days. A priest, using a special mirror and conse-
crated cotton, helps the sun rekindle the temple flame, from which all
fires in the empire are relit. Animal sacrifices are made, followed by
eight days of feasting. Poland: FEASTOFZYWIE,goddess of longevity.
Scandinavia: FEASTOFORLOG,Deity of Destiny.

SEPTEMBER 19 — PAOLO FREIRE
Brazilian radical educational theorist, social activist.

SEPTEMBER 19, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Jewish ROSH HASHANAH begins.
Lakota and Oglala Sioux: FEAST OF MATO, the Bear Spirit.
Avening, Gloucestershire, England: PIG’S FACE FEAST, commemorating boar’s head feast in 1080.
Berkshire, England: SCOURING THE WHITE HORSE, with a 400-foot chalk figure drawn on a hill.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 19 IN HISTORY
1833 — Mary Jemison, “race traitor,” adopted Senecan “white Indian,” dies.
1921 — Radical educational theorist Paolo Freire born, Recife, Brazil.
1928 — Disney’s “Steamboat Willie,” first talking cartoon, released.
1955 — Argentina ousts dictator Juan Perón.
1959 —Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev barred from visiting Disneyland.
1985 — Italian fabulist writer Italo Calvino dies, Siena, Italy.

SEPTEMBER 18, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Justis Valley, Swiss Alps: DIVIDING OF THE CHEESE among herdsmen, followed by music, feasting, amusements.
Munich: OKTOBERFEST. Drinking, feasting, general jollification.
Mexico: FESTIVAL OF PUNGARANCHA, Michoacan God of Runners.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 18 IN HISTORY…
1634 — Spiritual freethinker Anne Hutchinson arrives in Boston, Mass.
1970 — Rock legend Jimi Hendrix dies, barbiturate overdose, London, England.
1971 — Three police killed, hundreds hurt, Narita airport protest, Japan.

1980 — Cuban Cosmonaut Arnoldo Tamayo becomes first Black in space.

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Villiers–Perwin, Belgium: FEAST OF THE PILGRIMS. A ludicrous, raucous
parody of pilgrimages, with nonsense speeches, mock baptisms and fu-
nerals, clowns and pantomime donkeys, feasting and drinking.
Burma: FESTIVAL OF MIN KYAWZWA, God of Drinking and Fireworks.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 17 IN HISTORY…
1179 — Hildegard of Bingen, archetypal medieval feminist, dies.
1859 — Self-coronation of Emperor Norton I of U.S., San Francisco, California.

1883 — Poet William Carlos Williams born, Rutherford, New Jersey.
1980 — Former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza assassinated.
1995 — “Back to the Land” radical Helen Nearing dies, Harborside, Maine.

SEPTEMBER 16, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
STEP FAMILY DAY.
Brittany: FÊTE OF ST. CORNÉLY AT CARNAC. All horned animals are given a tour of the church, and priests pretend not to notice.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 16 IN HISTORY…
1620 — Puritan separatists sail from Britain on the Mayflower for New World.
1874 — Mexican anarchist Ricardo Flores Magon born, San Antonio Eloxochitan.
1885 — Children’s psychoanalyst Karen Horney born, Hamburg, Germany.
1917 — Premier Alexander Kerensky proclaims Russia a very brief republic.
1923 — Japanese anarchist Osugi Sakae murdered by police.

Friday, September 25, 2009 @ Lo-Fi Performance Gallery 21+, doors at
7 pm, show at 8 pm $12
Lumerians
Jackie-O Motherfucker
Kinski
Purple Rhinestone Eagle
Treetarantula

Saturday, September 26, 2009 @ The Vera Project all ages, doors at 5
pm, show at 6 pm $15
Wooden Shjips
Eternal Tapestry
Prince Rama of Ayodhya
Lord Jeff
Midday Veil
Geist & the Sacred Ensemble
oKo yOnO
Cloaks
The Slaves
Story of Rats

A limited offer of 50 advance passes for both nights are available on the ESCALATOR festival website through PayPal.

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
INTERNATIONAL LITERACY DAY. GRANDPARENTS DAY.
Marquesas, Polynesia: FEAST OF PAPA-IEA, God of Kava Drinking.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 8 IN HISTORY…
1784 — Shaker leader Mother Ann Lee dies, Watervliet, New York.
1873 — Pataphysician, proto-surrealist Alfred Jarry born, Laval, France.
1949 — Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco dies, Mexico City, Mexico.
1974 — U.S. President Gerald Ford pardons Richard Nixon.
1974 — Evel Knievel jumps Snake River Canyon on a rocket motorcycle.
1977 — Blacklisted film comedian Zero Mostel dies, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Hindu world: FESTIVAL OF DURGA, Goddess of Energy and the World.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 7 IN HISTORY…
1901 — Boxer Rebellion ends with Peace of Peking Treaty signing, China.
1909 — Psychoanalytic theorist Sigmund Freud begins U.S. lecture series.
1936 — American rock pioneer Buddy Holly born, Lubbock, Texas.
1940 — German blitz bombing of London, England begins.
1962 — Danish author Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) dies, Rungsted, Denmark.
1986 — Desmond Tutu named Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa.

SEPTEMBER 6, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Oxford, England: ST. GILES FAIR, an 800-year old pleasure fest.
Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, England: THE HORN DANCE, an ancient
tradition wherein a troupe of 12 men — six with reindeer horns, others
with a hobby-horse, a man/woman Maid Marian, a fool, an archer, a
concertina player and a boy with a triangle around his neck — dress
as foresters. They dance 14 miles around the town boundaries
before the antler men do their long and strange horn dance, followed
by a pleasure fair which lasts late into the night.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 6 IN HISTORY…
1522 — Magellan’s ship completes first round-the-world voyage.
1566 — Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent dies, Constantinople, Turkey.
1860 — Hull House founder, social activist Jane Addams born Cedarville, Illinois.
1901 — U.S. President William McKinley shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz.
1941 — Jews in Nazi Germany are required to wear yellow Star of David badges.
1966 — Sex reformer, birth-control advocate Margaret Sanger dies, Tucson, Arizona.
1974 — Housing occupations & barricading in Rome lead to legalized squatting.

SEPTEMBER 5, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Ancient Rome: CIRCENSIAN GAMES in the Roman Circus, originally
a one-day event of athletic competitions which grew
to a week-long festival with many entertainments.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 5 IN HISTORY…
1569 — Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder dies, Brussels, Belgium.
1791 — Masonic conspirator, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies, Prague.
1877 — Great Sioux war chief Crazy Horse murdered by U.S. soldiers, Fort Robinson, Nebraska.
1912 — Anarcho-musicologist John Cage born, Los Angeles, California.
1964 — “Rebel Girl” Elizabeth Gurley Flynn dies, Moscow, USSR.
2008 — Psychedelics researcher Tom Lyttle dies, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

SEPTEMBER 4, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
ANTI-LABOR DAY: Zerowork. Guatemalan Highlands: LOOKING AT THE
BOUNDARIES. A syncretic Mayan/Christian ceremony performed by the
Cuchumatan Indians, involving the perambulation of the township
boundary markers, with prayers for all people outside as well as in.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 2 IN HISTORY…
1896 — French playwright, poet, madman Antonin Artaud born.
1908 — Black American writer Richard Wright born, Natchez, Mississippi.
1926 — Anarchist critic of institutions Ivan Illich born, Vienna, Austria.
1965 — Medical humanitarian Albert Schweitzer dies, Lambaréné, Gabon.
1995 — William Kunstler, sixties-era rebel lawyer, dies, New York City.

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
CELEBRATION OF THE CROWDED OCTAVE.

ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 2 IN HISTORY…
1752 — English Parliament cancelled for ten days in constitutional crisis.
1811 — Utopianist John Humphrey Noyes born, Brattleboro, Vermont.
1813 — “Uncle Sam” image used for first time, in Troy, New York, Post.
1859 — French socialist leader Jean Jaures born, Castres, Tarn, France.
1883 — Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev dies, politically exiled, Bougival, France.
1962 — American poet e.e. cummings dies, North Conway, New Hampshire.
1969 — Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh dies, Hanoi.
1974 — Microtonal composer, hobo Harry Partch dies, San Diego, California.
1981 — Prison revolts in Poland, 150 escape.
1991 — Filmmaker, US nationalist propagandist Frank Capra dies, La Quinta, CA.American rock prophet, cultural renegade, rebel hero.

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Nussairis, Asia Minor: FEAST OF ALI.
China: Festival of P’ING AN FU CHU WANG, the Star King.

ALSO ON AUGUST 25 IN HISTORY…
1666 —Great Fire of London begins, will burn for three days.
1766 — James Forten, abolitionist, inventor, born.
1839 — Economic critic Henry George born, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1872 — Mikhail Bakunin expelled from Communist International.
1973 — British medievalist, fantasist, J. R. R.Tolkien dies.

AUGUST 25, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Lake Champlain, New York: FEAST OF THE GREEN CORN, a pageant
presented by the Society for the Preservation of Indian Lore,
performed by actors from the six Iroquois nations.

ALSO ON AUGUST 25 IN HISTORY
1893 — “Colored Peoples’ Day” at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
1899 — Metaphysical writer Jorge-Luis Borges born, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
1900 — “Mad” German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche dies, Weimar, Germany.
1932 — Radical French publisher Gerard Lebovici born, Neuilly, France.
1968 — Lincoln Park, Chicago scene of riot during Democratic Party convention

August 24, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS

England: BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. Originally a 12th-century
cloth fair, opening with the snapping of shears, but by the
15th century it had become a raucous, rowdy pandemonium
of midways, freaks, sideshows, performing animals.
After 1640 London theaters shut down to go perform at the fair.

ALSO ON AUGUST 24 IN HISTORY…
79 — Vesuvius erupts, southern Italy.
1814 — British burn U.S. Capitol building and White House.
1902 — Annales “long-durée” historian Fernand Braudel born, Lunéville, France.
1916 — French anarchist songwriter, composer Leo Ferré born, Monaco.
1943 — French writer, activist Simone Weil dies, Ashford, Kent, England.
1954 — U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower signs Communist Control Act.
1980 — Solidarnosc union founded, Gdansk, Poland, a challenge to Commie rule.

August 23, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Lithuania: HARVEST FESTIVAL. Ridiculous speeches, feasting and dancing.
In the “Kirvis,” a pretty maiden stands in the center of a circle of
dancers, holding an ax. The circle sings, the ax is thrown, & the young
man who catches it, often bleeding, gets a kiss & a dance.

ALSO ON AUGUST 23 IN HISTORY…
1900 — Folk, protest singer Malvina Reynolds born, San Francisco, California.
1911 — Ishi, last member of his stone-age tribe, discovered in California.
1927 — Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti executed in Boston, amid great protests.
1983 — Back-to-the-Earth advocate Scott Nearing dies, Maine.

August 21, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Ath, Belgium: FESTIVAL OF GOLIATH. Parade of giants.

ALSO ON AUGUST 17 IN HISTORY…
1831 — Nat Turner leads Aubrey Beardsley born.
1888 — William S. Burroughs awarded patent for adding machine.
1904 — William “Count” Basie born, Red Bank, New Jersey.
1971 — Black Panther George Jackson assassinated, San Quentin prison, California.
2003 — Outsider artist, schizophrenic musician Wesley Willis dies, Chicago, Illinois.

August 18, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Budapest, Hungary: ST. STEPHEN’S FESTIVAL. A magnificent procession car-
ries the reliquary through the streets followed by feasting,
merry-making and dancing in the streets and parks.

ALSO ON AUGUST 18 IN HISTORY…
1830 — First Negro convention held, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1878 — American novelist Upton Sinclair born, Baltimore, Maryland.
1890 — Crackpot fantasist H. P. Lovecraft born, Providence, Rhode Island.
1934 — Autonomous publisher Fredy Perlman born, Brno, Czechoslovakia.
1940 — Leon Trotsky fatally icepicked by Stalinist goon, Coyoácan, Mexico.
1968 — Soviet Army invades Czechoslovakia, ending “Prague Spring.”

August 19, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
FEAST OF RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY LOSS.

ALSO ON AUGUST 19 IN HISTORY…
1909 — First edition of The Little Red Songbook published.

1936 — Federico Garcia Lorca killed by Spanish Falangists, Granada, Spain.
1977 — Film comedian Groucho Marx dies, Los Angeles, California.
1994 — American quantum chemist, radical Linus Pauling dies, Big Sur, California.

August 18, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Wales: Ancient Bardic TOURNEY OF DRUIDS. Group singing, processions,
musical & literary competitions, awarding of bardic degrees.

ALSO ON AUGUST 18 IN HISTORY…
1587 — Virginia Dare, first English child born in North America, born in North America.
1812 — Lady Ludd leads corn market riots at Leeds, England.
1922 — Alain Robbe-Grillet, French “nouveau roman” writer, born, Brest.
1977 — Black rights activist Steve Biko arrested, South Africa.

AUGUST 17 — Marcus Garvey
Jamaican-American “Back to Africa” revolutionary.

August 17, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
China: FEAST OF THE HUNGRY GHOSTS. Wide variety of offerings for those
who died orphans, paupers or beggars, & those who died far from home.
Those lonesome & desolate souls may return to inhabit leaves & grasses,
& spread plagues. If offerings are made, they may stay away.

ALSO ON AUGUST 17 IN HISTORY…
1887 — “Back to Africa” Marcus Josiah Garvey born, St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica.
1892 — “Come up and see me sometime” Mae West born, Brooklyn, New York.
1955 — Emmett Till killed for “talking to a white woman,” Money, Mississippi.

Perhaps we needed a publication like Showpaper to gather all of the evidence on one page, but we can sense it just by keeping our ears peeled when wandering around the industrial waterfront of North Brooklyn at night: more and more young people in New York are taking the city’s musical culture into their own hands, booking the artists they want to see in buildings that condo developers never cared about anyway and eschewing the institutionalized age discrimination that keeps people who can’t drink away from live music. And the increased police crackdown on semi-legal concert venues (founded, apparently, on completely wrongheaded suspicions of weapon and drug possession, in addition to under-age drinking) doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone. New all-ages performances spaces still seem to be cropping up every month, sometimes attracting critical masses in the hundreds, and upstart show promoters looking to realize their unique artistic visions are practically ubiquitous. We might even call it a new chapter in the city’s cultural history if some of the people who built it with their own hands were willing and able to articulate it as such–and to explain how it might cohere as a generational worldview. With Brooklyn curator Todd Pendu, founder of the first large-scale festival devoted exclusively to grassroots cultural production in New York, we may very well have our man.

If you ever happen on the website for the Pendu Organization, an itinerant “arts and actions” non-profit formerly known as Transition Media, you might get the sense that its creator–formerly Todd Brooks–were trying to singlehandedly save the universe. And maybe he is. Since founding the organization as an independent record label in 2000, Todd changed its name (along with his own) to Pendu and expanded its field of activity to include, among other things, a traveling art gallery, an online arts and culture publication, an ongoing Pendu-curated concert and performance series, and a bookstore dedicated to artist’s books, zines, and comics. As though he weren’t already busy enough, he came up with the even more quixotic idea last year of channeling all of these endeavors into a massive, biannual happening: the NY Eye and Ear Fest, a weekend-long showcase of local DIY music, film, and art that premiered last December and returned for its second run earlier this month.

Though it may be too protean to pin down at any given moment, Pendu Org coheres through its commitment to artists working the marginalized fields of adhocism, occultism, and eroticism– “three ‘isms,” Todd laughs, “that academics just don’t like.” Pendu may be well versed in his Adorno and Benjamin, but he is just as wary of getting bogged down in a stalemate of anti-capitalist academic hair-splitting as he is of the potentially crippling effects of corporate sponsorship. With years of experience playing and organizing shows in the ‘90s hardcore scene to ride on, Pendu has arrived at a modus operandi appropriate to his own aims (and means), taking advantage of the proliferation of underground performance spaces like Death by Audio and Secret Project Robot to host dozens of events without having to pay rent: “Basically it’s the ideal of constantly moving the space that you are declaring Pendu. So it enables me to say at any given time, Here, I declare this as Pendu. And from then on, anything that happens there will be a Pendu event. It gives me the freedom to not have to rely on things that I actually don’t have.”

Which is not to say that finding a permanent home is not high on the list of Pendu Org’s long-term goals. But this spirit of itinerancy–along with the greater ideal of an arts organization that sustains itself entirely on resources found in its immediate environment–remains Todd’s priority. Pendu Org not only specializes in “adhocist” cultural production, but, like many of the venues it inhabits, survives and proliferates via adhocist principals. Coined in 1972 by architectural theorists Charles Jenks and Nathan Silver, the term “Adhocist” denotes a spontaneous act of creation–initially, in the field of architecture–that makes use of readily available materials–and often discarded materials–as it primary structural components: “It’s a question of taking the waste that’s all over the place, and using it, rather than just making more waste,” Todd explains.

Adhocism is nothing new, and predates the word itself, flowing through the history of modern art from Dadaist collage to DIY punk and the dwellings that the residents of the Drop City commune constructed out of junked car roofs in the 1960s. But it becomes particularly compelling when–in the midst of an economic crisis, rampant unemployment, and a widespread reconsideration of economic values–it emerges as an idea that an entire community can rally around: “It’s about using your local resources rather than depending on outside forces,” Todd explains. Let’s say you’re in the middle of the United States somewhere and it’s kind of a nowhere town. And you believe the only place you can have fun is New York. That’s a terrible thing to believe. And I hope that someone empowers you to say, No! I can build from all the things I have right here in my own hometown. It might not look like what they have, we might not have the same resources, but it’s what we have. And so you would have to overcome that.”

Todd’s decision to consecrate Eye and Ear entirely to artists and musicians from New York–as opposed to opening it up precisely to those “nowhere” towns that tend to fall under the nation’s radar–may seem at first glance like a contradiction in terms. But wouldn’t importing acts from rural Kansas and Montana and Mississippi kind of defeat the idea of highlighting the ways in which artists build from their local environment? And might such a configuration not simply reinforce the notion that New York was the gravitational center of the cultural universe, beckoning in underexposed artists from Nowheresville, USA and beyond with the promise of being finally validated? By restricting itself to a single geographical and cultural locus, Todd argues, NY Eye and Ear pulls back against this centralizing movement–showcasing the city as an isolated and idiosyncratic cultural ecosystem, as opposed to a career destination. “It’s not about closing yourself off, it’s not like saying, I only live here, I don’t want to go anywhere else again. It’s not the bubble. It’s just about saying, wherever you live, that place is going to have different foliage, different trees, it can be a swampy environment or a rural environment. All of these different things are going to effect how you think, and you create, what you think [...] And one of my main goals is to have Eye and Ears happening all over the place. I would like to see a San Francisco Eye and Ear, an Ohio Eye and Ear, a Chicago Eye and Ear, all utilizing the same principals and ideas.”

This month’s installment of NY Eye and Ear presented over seventy bands and filmmakers across four days and a heterogeneous scattering of venues: the Knitting Factory, a commercial but historically open-minded Manhattan music club; the 92nd Street Y, a non-profit cultural and community center in Tribeca; and Death by Audio, a leaky DIY performance space and guitar pedal manufacturer overlooking the East River in Williamsburg. For the two shows at the Knitting Factory, Pendu configured the performance schedule to allow for a maximum of musical discovery without provoking sensory overload. Spectators circulated round-robin style through three floors, catching a clipped, 20-minute set by one band as the following band set up downstairs–or zoning out for a time in the seven-hour continuous drone room in the basement, where a handful of artists–Pendu’s own solo project, chaos.CM.majik, included–facilitated an alternative experience of duration. Rather than group artists by genre, Pendu focused on making each evening as representative as possible of the sheer diversity of DIY musical production in New York. Night one, for example, followed up a free jazz detonation by George Steeltoe Ensemble with some danceable numbers by synth nerd trio Love Like Deloreans, then rolled out the carpet for Mike Wexler’s darkly glistening guitar folk. “I look at it like making a mix-tape,” Todd explains. “A mix-tape has all different kinds of music on it, but they all work, because if you’ve made a good mix-tape, you’ve made it flow in such a way that you can have all different genres. [...]. And then the whole thing just became something that you can’t get enough of.”

Central to the Eye and Ear model–which, Todd maintains, is reproducible practically anywhere– is the belief that festivals should be designed to facilitate community building. Presenting a black metal outfit like Liturgy alongside the freaky forest shenanigans of a group like Nymph may periodically force some spectators out of their musical comfort zones, but that might just be another way of saying that festivals like Eye and Ear bring strangers together. “I feel like putting it all under one roof gives people a chance to break out of their niches. In the South by Southwest model, if you only like noise pop, that’s all you’re into, and they have a showcase of noise pop in the festival, and you don’t have to hear anything else. You can just stay in your little bubble, go to your fake little show, watch the bands you like, and then go away. And I feel like it’s more about exposing people to stuff that they may or may not know, and doing it in a way that isn’t trying to make people commit to anything, just trying to help them have a fun time.” And Todd probably has a point here: at a time when the capitalistic specialization of labor and social identification has insinuated itself even as far as the world of independent music, pitting noise kids against new music composers and hippy songwriters against hardcore bands, the festival’s emphasis on geographical proximity and common adhocist practices might vest artists across the countercultural spectrum–along with their fans–with a renewed sense of solidarity.

But Eye and Ear is more than just a showcase of anti-hegemonic artistic production. As someone who has been churning out homegrown cassette and vinyl releases for as long as he can remember (including albums by Talibam!, Gang Wizard, Fossil, and recently, Atelecine, a noise lp by pornstar Sasha Grey), Todd knows that portrait of adhocist culture in New York could not be complete without a view of the independent businesses working behind the scenes to disseminate it to the public. Hence the NY Eye and Ear record fair, a day-long music bazaar featuring over 30 local independent record labels, equally emblematic of the ethic of making the most out of limited means.

Inspired by memories of ‘90s Florida hardcore scene, where pretty much every show was fair game for tables piled high with ‘zines, records, buttons, and patches (not necessarily having anything to do with the groups that were playing on that particular night), the fair presents an opportunity for real-space and real-time interaction between vendors and consumers, bringing participants back–or forward?–to a time when the independent music industry wasn’t completely subsumed by the facelessness and geographical dislocation of internet mail-order. Pendu’s hope? “I think it would be really exciting for people to get back into the idea of saying, Oh! I don’t have to mail-order, I can meet these people, these are the people who run the labels, these are the people who make the stuff, who are hand-building the tapes. You can actually be part of it, be inspired by it, it might make you start your own label when you go home.”

For the labels themselves, which range from penniless at-home cassette labels to “major” indies like Matador, the event’s non-hierarchical sprawl of tightly-packed tables presents an occasion for local movers and shakers to meet, talk music, and profit from their mutual association: “If somebody hasn’t heard of Obsolete Units, but they’ve heard of Abandon Ship Records, and the two labels are sitting next to each other, and they go to Abandon Ship Records because they’ve heard of it, they’re more likely to look over at Obsolete Units. And now know about a label that they didn’t know before. You’re building everybody up.” And if the festival’s spectators look closely enough, they can discover a similar logic in Pendu’s booking strategy, which lumps “major indie” acts like the Magik Markers in with younger unsigned artists whose national exposure pretty begins and ends with a few MP3s on MySpace.

Whether or not we agree with all of Pendu’s curatorial choices (the spaces included), or whether any individual installment of NY Eye and Ear successfully turns us on to our new favorite band or our new favorite 7-inch, we cannot ignore the festival’s greatest accomplishment: proof that it is still possible, even in the city where it would seem the least possible, to launch a massive counter-cultural happening riding pretty much on big ideas and optimism alone. Perhaps we can read Eye and Ear as an emblem of the “Yes, We Can Generation,” where, on a rhetorical level at least, young people seem to be taking to the idea that they use can their own hands to build the change they want to see. Or maybe we can explain it using Todd Pendu’s own personal slogan, “The Actions of Yes,” which turns the modernist ideal of autonomous art on its head, and attempts to present a more pro-active alternative to 1960’s ethos of opposition. “Yes implicitly says no. There is nothing that you can say yes to without also saying no. On the other side, no is all reaction. Yes is an action, which means that you have decided to do something, and said, Yes. For example, you can say, “Stay out of war. But in my view, it would be better to say yes to a world without war. Saying no to war is a reaction to the war, it’s saying that war happens, but that it’s not your thing. Saying yes is an opportunity to get out there and say, I want to create a world that is different than that.”

On a political and economic level, NY Eye and Ear says “Yes,” by presenting a living, tangible alternative to profit-centric festivals like South by Southwest–and, more recently, the Northside Festival in Brooklyn–that cordon-off all of the local bars and clubs in an entire urban area (often ones that usually curate their own events), import artists from all over the nation, consolidate all of the profits in the hands of a small group of organizers, and claim to do so in the name “community.” On a cultural one, it Says Yes to creating a home for artists that never let a lack of state of the art equipment, professional publicity, or “the right connections” stop them from doing what they love, and who convert this “lack” into the freedom to make art entirely on their own terms. “Freedom is not about breaking the rules,” Todd insists, “it’s about making your own rules.” No wonder, then, that the artists that appear in Eye and Ear all look and sound so different; each was chosen for her ability to forge her own constraints, her own parameters, honing them and mastering them until she can finally get up on stage and draw us into the ecstatic spectacle of an individual truly singing her own song. And perhaps that is the very image that we, the jobless, outpriced, millenial “Yes We Can generation,” need someone to be holding up to our eyes right now.

Interview with Todd Pendu, NYC, July 2009.
Article by Emilie Friedlander
Photo Courtesy Todd Pendu

Lend a hand to NY Eye and Ear and Pendu Org! Though the good people behind Pendu Org are simply overflowing with ideas for December’s installment of the festival–among various other adhocist experiences–the organization is entirely non-profit, and relies entirely on out-of-pocket funding and donations from good people like you in order stay afloat in this economy. Any contribution, large or small, can keep Pendu Org going; the alternative is that it may soon have to close its doors. Visit the organization’s ABOUT PAGE to donate, and click on the PAYPAL button.

Transfigurations 2009, August 13-15
The Grey Eagle, Diana Wortham Theatre, & Fine Arts Theatre
Asheville, NC
Festival Schedule

On July 9th and 10th, Eye & Ear II will take over all three floors of the Knitting Factory for two days of non-stop musical action, including a video art installation and “7-hour continuous drone room” in the basement. Next up, the festivities will travel to the 92Y Tribeca Cultural and Community Center for a “free” record fair (admission, not records, though these will be cheaply priced), additional live performances, and the debut of Women of NYCinema, a new Pendu-coordinated film series. Day four brings the party back to Brooklyn, which obviously had to feature somewhere in this celebration of predominately Brooklyn-based artists, for a finale concert at Death By Audio in Williamsburg.

Thursday, July 9th, 6pm- Knitting Factory – $10 Adv/$12 Door
74 Leonard Street, New York, NY 10013
Nymph, Begushkin, Religious to Damn, Love Like Deloreans, Grooms, Hunters, Blondes, Neg-Fi, Liturgy, Mike Wexler, Love or Perish, George Steeltoe Ensemble, Best Hits, Dinowalrus, Rebecca Gaffney, Harrison Owen, Peru Ana Ana Peru, Dubsdread, Jesse Gelaznik, Bob Bellerue, Anthony Saunders, Rust Worship, Christian Science Minotaur

Friday, July 10th, 6pm – Knitting Factory - $10 Adv/$12 Door
74 Leonard Street, New York, NY 10013
Magik Markers, Mouthus, Led Er Est, Telecult Powers, Further Reductions, Key to Shame, Skin Drink, SSPS, Child Abuse, Mazing Vids, Mirror Mirror, Hallux, Towering Heroic Dudes, chaos.CM.majik, Ala Muerte, Fluorescent Vibes, Mi Or and the Pedestals, Don Sigal, Steve Lowenthal (DJ), Jane Tesco (DJ), Veronica Vasicka (DJ)

Saturday, July 11th – 92Y Tribeca Cultural and Community Center
200 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013
Free Record Fair featuring 30+ DIY record labels and zine/comic/sticker/art vendors, 4pm to Midnight
Abandon Ship Records, AnarchyMoon Recordings, Baked Tapes, Cryptic Carousel, Death by Audio, Digital Cassette Records, Does Are, ESP Disk, Esto Perpetua Records, Fingered Media, Heat Retention Records, The Journal of Popular Noise, Little Fury Things, Missing Fingers, NO-CORE, Noiseville, Obsolete Units, Opposite Records, Pendu Sound Recordings, Speed Tapes, Tesco USA, Wierd Records

Women of NYCinema, 4pm, $10 Adv/$12 Door
Sarah Lipstate, Liz Wendelbo, Rachel Blackwell

Musical Performances, 9pm, $10 Adv/$12 Door
Blacklist, Martial Canterel, John Wiese, Freshkills, Infinity Window, Living Days, Axoloti, Island’s Eyelids, Grasshopper, Pieter Wierd (DJ)

Sunday, July 12th, 6pm – Death By Audio, $10 Adv/$12 Door
49 South 2nd Street between Wythe & Kent Brooklyn, NY
Murdertronics, Team Robespierre, Talibam!, Total Abuse, Drunk Driver, Pygmy Shrews, Opponents

Visit the WizardFest photo gallery for more sights. Some backstory on WizardFest and participating artists here.

This month at Parker’s Box, artist Steven Brower’s Brower Propulsion Laboratory stages a three-week “Pre-Launch Operations Test” for its third large-scale space voyage, lovingly christened “Moranic Mission to Montana.” A pioneer and market leader in the field of one-man, penniless “corporate” aerospace companies, BPL is unique for conducting its exploratory research missions entirely on the planet earth, and, in an industry typically fueled by a desire for financial, political, scientific, and geographical conquest, for undertaking all of its projects in a spirit of “disutility.” “The basic goal of each mission at BPL,” the company’s official website states, is simply “to do something”– and, through, the acquisition of knowledge and technical expertise linked to the demands of each operation, to develop a “parallel universe of pseudoexpertise,” applicable only to BPL operations.

The company’s third mission, scheduled for late August, 2009, will mobilize three handmade robotic spacecraft (a lander, a rover, and a hot air balloon) to retrace the path of Hudson River School painter Thomas Moran in his historic 1871 expedition to Livingston, Montana, near Yellowstone National Park. Until that landmark expedition, which people worldwide will be able to follow on the “Interweb,” people interested in learning more about BPL can drop by Parker’s box for a look at some of Steven Brower’s (patented?) inventions–including, but not limited to, the three spacecraft, a “cheap ass” laser night vision system, water color “surveys” of the Yellowstone terrain, and BPL souvenir merchandise. A bake sale fundraiser will be in effect through all of the gallery’s open hours, with delicious pies, cupcakes, and cookies baked daily by the company CEO himself.

Steven Brower, BPL Mission 003 : Pre-Launch Operations Test (PLOT)
Friday-Monday, 1-7pm, through June 21, 2009
Parker’s Box
193 Grand Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Map

The Montague Phantom Brain Exchange, a monthly art and thought happening in the slightly world weary old New England mill town of Turners Falls, seems to have become a prime destination for all things “weird and unusual” on the Western Massachusetts cultural front. Curated by “Mr. Cloaca,” whose use of a pseudonym here jibes perfectly with the “phantom” vibe, the MPBE describes itself as “a place where bodied and disembodied brains & nonbrains can safely gather to deconstruct solutions & create problems while soaking in an invigorating bath of provocative entertainments.” While Western Mass is positively overflowing with energetic brain-swappings of this kind (and you can check out the Happy’n'in’Valley blog calendar here if you doubt it), Cloaca’s series is unique for always pairing live performance, DJ transports, and moving images screenings with a fifteen minute lecture–that is, the MPBE’s signature “music-book-report-series-within-a-series,” founded by Bull Tongue co-mastermind Byron Coley last year.

Below is the missive for this month’s offering:

June being the month of stretched time & light, and with time being
this concept that may or may not exist within the next couple of
years, and light being impossible to capture, i couldn’t think of a
better, brighter moment that of the auspicious day of June 24th to
unleash these talents. read on:

Epicureans are a hot nu jazz trio from East of Beanville featuring
David Gross (sax/voice), Ricardo Donoso (drums),
& Ryan Mcguire (bass). Cultivating their quiet riot on a fertile plot
of hurt, The Epicureans grow their own delectables utilizing a wide
improvisational vocabulary from lower case insinuation to full-on
tumultuous bombast. Their debut CD is out now on Semata Productions.

Lyn Goeringer sculpts invisible rube goldberg machines of glitchy
goodness triggered & manipulated by theremin, computer, glitterbox, &
other hand made electronics. The Providence-based artist keeps busy
with a bunch of collaborative projects including East of Borneo, K +
M, and in a duo with Brandon Vaccaro. She has an excellently
entrancing solo release on noisician Shawn Greenlee’s IYNGES web
label. Check it out here.

Local DJ hero Bex Taylor will be continuing our
music-book-report-series-within-a-series (started last year by Byron
Coley), lecturing on a book about the Riot Grrl movement. Taylor DJs
under a fake last name to protect the innocent. Back in the day, she
was the record buyer at Main St Records ( in Northampton) & burned
minds on the FM dial with her awesome show, the Ludovico Technique.
As a pimply teen, i fondly recall nervously buying my first Minutemen
LP from her intimidatingly badass self! Her current music gig is
co-DJing Rockitqueer – the monthly Rendezvous dance party. She
sometimes moonlights on 88.5 WFCR, but that’s only to keep up her punk
rock street cred. Nothing says punk rock more than NPR. Lucky for us,
she’ll be spinning righteous selections of grrl powered postpunk & the
like.

Overture Brown’s sumptuous psychedelic forrest creatures will dance
upon our screen in a batik-y swirl of magnificently rendered pixels.
The wildly colorful Overture B universe comes from the heads/hands of
Aya & Jason Brown, who will be present to absorb your adorations.

Lastly, remember, the door to submit material for the MPBE Paper
Program is always open – writings, images, & the like are always
welcome & usually get somehow added into the collaged product. Get up
in it!

Montague Phantom Brain Exchange #19
Epicureans, Lyn Goeringer, DJ/Lecturer Bex Taylor, Overture Brown
Wednesday, June 24th, 9pm Five Bucks!
The Rendezvous
78 3rd St
Turners Falls, MA 01376
Map

The good folk of Portland are in for a treat this month with two in situ sound soirées by FEE, which founders Tigerlilly Holyoak and Larissa Hammond describe as “a travelling music venue focused on integrating music and design.” Following an “opposite igloo” in Oregon’s temperate rainforest and a fushia-colored sight and sound extravaganza at Portland’s Together Gallery (check out the duo’s FLICKR page here), FEY will be unveiling a mysterious new “earth space” venue on the sixth and the nineteenth, the nature of which surely has to be seen to be believed: a tunnel? A firepit? A gargantuan mound of earth?

After a magical show with artists Diane Cluck, Anders Griffen, Malcolm Rollick and The Unwin-Dunraven Literary Ecclesia last fall, FEY is back for the summer. And after much ado, the earth space constructed by FEY founders Tigerlilly Holyoak and Larissa Hammond is open, restored and ready to channel s i l e n c e through the exploration of sound, space and sight in totality; including their v o i d . In the wake of chanting trees, constellations and the moon, t r a n s i e n c e is key- don’t forget your cleanest jacket and sunday hat; it’s going to be a glorious ride.

The month of June promises to be a gentle one, with Sunset and Castanets kicking things off. The shows will also feature visual art in conjunction with the Together Gallery of the Alberta Arts District in Portland, Oregon and photographs by Macaul Johnson. Show goers are encouraged to bring their own art for display, as always. The earth space is located at 8335 NW Whitney St in Portland, Oregon and each show will begin at 9pm. Cost is on a sliding scale of 5-7 dollars. To learn more about this month’s artists and co-conspirators, please navigate the links below, and feel welcome to contact this email address with any questions, comments or desired clarification (contact.fey@gmail.com). More to come very soon!

Saturday, June 6, 9pm: Sunset (Austin, TX) + friends

Friday, June 19, 9pm: Castanets (Brooklyn/PDX/San Diego) + friends

the earth space
8335 NZ Whitney Street
Portland, OR
map

SUBLIME FREQUENCIES Film Screenings
Rare and unseen Sublime Frequencies films, director in attendance (so you can blame him)

INDIA AT 78rpm
Folk and classical music in India through the lens of the largest private collection of 78rpm records and dusty ephemera on the sub-continent.

MY FRIEND RAIN
Decay and rebirth and death through the endless Asian monsoon cycle. A collage of musical segments and tropical ambiance from Robert Millis and Alan Bishop.

PHI TA KHON: GHOSTS OF ISAN
A traditional Buddhist ghost festival from Thailand’s Isan province that features beautiful handmade masks, outrageous wooden phalluses, ceremony, ritual, dancing, and endless music.

performances by Climax Golden Twins

at the Suoni Festival in Montreal on June 13th and 14th

also at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn on June 16th

A university-wide “Call to Action” (as opposed to “Call for Entries”):

The Free Skool, at The University of Trash
Sculpture Center
44-19 Purves Street
Long Island City, NY 11101
Thursday-Monday, 11am-6pm
$5 requested donation

WizardFest will be held on Saturday, May 30th 2009 at Locomotive Springs in north western Utah. This is a free musical event in an open desert setting. There are no services at Locomotive Springs and there will be nothing for sale at WizardFest, so bring the basics: food, water, appropriate clothing, etc. We ask that you please leave your dogs at home. Look at the map and read the directions linked to this site so that you don’t get lost and miss it! The music will start at 3:00 o’clock and will continue until the sun goes down. This year’s line up will consist of Get Stakerized! Dos Hombres Van A Morir, Sunday School, Ben Thunderblood, the mysterious magic of Matt Bruce, a Dracula in the old west puppet show, After The Party, Antelope Island, and Reciprocal Redux. This year we are happy to present the Boxcar gallery featuring prominent and obscure painting, printing, photography and..? The museum will display geography, local history, and some incredible authentic Voodoo artifacts. We are holding this event in the spirit of fun and freedom, and we sincerely hope to bring people together for a very unique and memorable time, so come and join us for Wizard Fest!

Directions: You can access Locomotive Springs from I-15 by taking the Corinne exit and traveling west on Hwy 83 towards Thiokol, then west at Lampo junction (Promontory), past the Golden Spike National Monument, Howell Valley junction (end of paved road) and staying on the county gravel road traveling west for about 25 miles. Signs are present to help direct you on the county road.

WizardFest
Saturday, May 30, 3:00-sundown
Locomotive Springs
FREE, but bring water and vittles

Jozef Van Wissem & Guy Blakeslee, with a slideshow by Jeremy Rendina
Sunday, May 17, 8pm
Philosophical Research Society
3910 Los Feliz Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90027
$8, BYOB

Showpaper, the free, biweekly foldout of DIY, all-ages concert listings in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey, has revolutionized (or, more aptly, de-virtualized) the way a lot of us find out about shows. Rather than spend hours clicking away on the internet, music lovers can now walk into favorite comic store or falafel joint and pick up a single sheet of newsprint that lists all of these events in one place. Better yet, Showpaper is also its own physical souvenir–each issue doubles as a limited edition poster print of an original artist’s work, which you can tack up in your living room for all to see or simply revisit once in a while to remind yourself of a good week in musical time gone by. Perhaps you were too busy concert-hopping to notice, but this month marks the publication’s two-year anniversary, as well as a handful of fun Showpaper benefits to help keep the publication going strong. Showpaper is 100% advertising free, and relies on the public sponsorship and volunteered labor-time of readers like you in order to stick around in your neighborhood.

If you are not already booked up with other Showpaper listings, kindly check out these two awesome fundraiser events in Brooklyn this week:

MVT: MUSIC VIDEO TIME
(videos curated by ARTICLE / Nick Chatfield-Taylor)
Ninjasonik “Somebody Gonna Get Pregnant” (PREMIERE)
Titus Andronicus “Upon Viewing Brueghel’s ‘Landscape and the Fall of Icarus”
by Mike Reynolds (PREMIERE)
Japanther “Radical Businessman” (PREMIERE)
Animal Collective “My Girls”
Matt and Kim “Lessons Learned”
Screaming Females “Bell”
by Biz Lynch
Future Islands “Beach Foam”
by Joe Stakun
Len Lye’s Swinging the Lambeth Walk (From 1940)
Punk Tree (Japanther Documentary)
by Chad Van Nau
2 short docs on The Eskalators’ Subway Show
by Charlie Ahearn and Flip Switch Productions
more vids tba / q&a after each vid

ALSO obscure and hilarious advertisements in between music videos curated by FREE DANGER / Jay Buim

8PM / $5-20 (sliding scale) / ALL AGES (duh!)
Wednesday May 13th @ Monster Island Basement (map)
[ G > Lorimer / L > Bedford / JMZ > Marcy ]

========

From Benefit Posters
NOISE @ SILENT BARN
(music/media curated by Nick Nauman)
IN
Holy Spirits
The Derelicts
Visual Projections by Ivy Meadows and Ashley May

8PM / $5-20 (sliding scale) / ALL AGES (duh!)
Thursday, May 14th @ The Silent Barn (map)
[ L > Halsey / M > Myrtle-Wyckoff ]

Also performing at the Silent Barn show on the 14th, the mighty psych-rock outfit Behavior, who, after appearing basically out of nowhere, have been eliciting ear-to-ear grins all over New York City with their inspired mix of taught melodica and high-gravity jam outros that are messy as all hell.

For more information on upcoming benefits, sign up for the Showpaper mailing list here

After a few years on hiatus, the legendary Flywheel Arts Collective in Western Massachusetts is back on the map with a brand new home at Easthampton’s historic Old Town Hall. Founded in 1999, Flywheel is a non-profit, volunteer-run community arts space that hosts everything from live music to traveling theater troupes and is home to one of the most comprehensive zine libraries in New England. Whether Flywheel already holds a sentimental place in your heart–perhaps as the site of your first exposure to the Pioneer Valley’s burgeoning noise and weird folk scenes as a college student–or you’re simply interested in checking out one of the area’s first (and last) true all-ages public meeting spaces, May 9 is a great day to come out and show your support. Saturday marks the second installment of the Flywheel’s biannual Record Fair Fundraiser, which is a perfect opportunity to satisfy those nasty record cravings with the knowledge that you are contributing to a worthwhile cause.

Details from the Flywheel website, which also provides some useful information on how to get involved:

Hey kids! It’s spring and you know what that means, it’s time for our twice annual record fair fundraiser. This one is taking place on Saturday May 9th 2009 in the scrappy under-construction confines of our new home at the OLD TOWN HALL in the center of Easthampton. Come by from 10:00am-3:30pm.

17+ dealers will be on hand give you the wax fix you so desire with the usual eclectic selection of vintage vinyl. As we always say, your ATM will hate you, your turntable will love you. Don’t miss it.

Also, get a chance to check out the progress on our very-soon-to-be-operational home.

Flywheel Spring Record Fair Fundraiser
Saturday, May 9, 10:00am-3:30pm
Flywheel Arts Collective
Easthampton Old Town Hall
43 Main Street
Easthampton, MA 01027
Directions

A description of the event from the I.D. Project Website:

Alternative currency systems naturally encourage cooperation, reciprocation, self-reliance, and mutual aid. These four elements are the foundation of social interdependence and socio-economic solidarity. Come learn about starting a complementary currency and how new forms of exchange build value in your community.

Join us for a panel discussion featuring Alex Gordon-Brander, Charles Eisenstein, and Douglas Rushkoff. Q&A to follow introductions and explanations.

Friday May 15, 2009, 8pm-10pm
Lila Center, Interdependence Project
302 Bowery @ Houston St., 3rd fl.
F/V, D, 6, R/W trains all nearby
$10 or $5 (students/unemployed/monthly IDP donors)

Money should not keep you away!
Let us know if you can’t afford the cost and would like to attend.
Contact info@theidproject.com

The I.D. Project also has a group in Portland, Oregon!

This Monday, people in the New York area (lucky ducks!) can get the ALI_FIB experience in their very own backyard. Or, more specifically, at Matchless in Brooklyn, with a killer evening of music by raga guitar legend Peter Walker (and one-time musical director under Dr. Timothy Leary), David Daniell, and Carter Thornton. Wow.

Peter Walker + David Daniell +Thornton
Monday May 11th – 9pm – $8
Matchless
557 Manhattan Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11222
Nassau Ave. (G) / Bedford Ave. (L)

poster by Zeloot

If you can’t make it out the show, check out the Ali_Fib-curated “Err on the Good Side” compilation, recently released on the Swiss-French micro-label, Three:Four. Featuring Amen Dunes, Ben Nash, Duane Pitre, El-g, Sus & Jakob, Hellvete, Illitch, Liberez, Mike Wexler, Sir Richard Bishop, and Steve Gunn.

Just a question for the folks behind No Fun: an endorsement from a major art institution like the New Museum is definitely no chicken feed, and some might even say that the festival has now officially joined the the major leagues. So why is the event not even listed on the No Fun website?

No Fun 2009: Infinite Sound and Image
Saturday, May 16, 3pm
New Museum
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002
$6 members, $8 general public

A description of TONALISM from the Dublab family:

Inspired by La Monte Young’s “Dream House” as well as the work of musicians and composers such as Terry Riley, Yoko Ono and John Cage, Tonalism combines harmonious textures with visual elements to create an atmosphere where the audience is encouraged to bring pillows, cushions and sleeping bags to lay down, listen and watch for an extended period of time. DJs, live musicians and VJs play and perform throughout the night; starting at sunset and ending at sunrise. Complimentary tea and water are provided to all who attend.

ON THE REDWOODS STAGE:

Live Performances by:
Windy and Carl (Kranky)
Pharaohs (members of Languis and Big Swell)
Matt Baldwin / Inner Beauty
Lyonnais
White Rainbow (Kranky)
Nudge (Kranky)

DJ Sets by:
Obrian System (very special guest)
frosty (dublab)
Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel, Postal Service, dublab)
Part TIme Punks DJ Michael Stock
Andy Cabic (Vetiver)
Katie Byron (dublab)
Nanny Cantaloupe (dublab)
Turquoise Wisdom (dublab, Small Town Talk)
matthewdavid (dublab, Leaving Tapes)

Visuals by:
Matt Amato (The Masses)

ON THE CANYON STAGE:

Performances Curated by Carlos Niño for dublab:
Mia Doi Todd
Carlos Niño & Jesse Peterson
The Nick Rosen/Brian Green Duo
The dublab Drone-Dreamers
DJ Cool Chris of Groove Merchant
GB
Life On Earth! (of Dungen)
and Special Guests

Set Design by:
Katie Byron

TONALISM
Thursday, May 28, 4:20 pm – 5:00 am
Henry Miller Library
Highway One, Big Sur, CA 93920
$20, all ages (does not including venue fees)
Complimentary tea will be served throughout the night.
Bring pillows, blankets, beanbags, sleeping bags, cushions, lay down and listen.
There will be a fire pit and heat lamps but make sure to bring warm clothes because it gets cold at night.

Buy tickets

La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela’s “Dream House”, Mela Foundation, Tribeca, NYC. Find out more about La Monte Young and the Mela Foundation here.

Tee Pee Treehouse, interior. Rafters recycled from a nearby 100-year-old barn.

“New Treehouses of the World”, TreeHouse Workshop founder Pete Nelson’s fifth book, shows us how he constructs some of his own architectural creations, then brings us on a tour of some of the most breathtaking woodland habitations around the world. On shelves in May. Full sneak-preview on the LA Times website.

Visit Pete Nelson’s blog for information on house-building workshops and other upcoming TreeHouse Workshop projects.

“Thanky is proud to present “The Cartoon Utopia”, a show of new work by Ron Regé, Jr., a cartoonist and musician from Plymouth, Massachusetts. Ron Regé, Jr. began publishing his own minicomics while attending Massachusetts College of Art in 1988 and has since been published by Kramer’s Ergot, Buenaventura Press, Drawn & Quarterly, Highwater Books, Fantagraphics, and McSweeney’s. His illustrations have appeared regularly in The New York Times and Canada’s National Post. Ron Regé, Jr. currently lives in Los Angeles where he plays drums in the band Lavender Diamond. Regé possesses a big heart and a steady hand, creating intricate lines and patterns, cute cartoon people and creatures that inhabit a fantastic universe with stories that dive into the deepest or darkest notions of our experience. His perception of human nature is always keen and precise and his work vibrates with a joyful energy. He has exhibited at The Hope Gallery in LA and at the Librarie Drawn & Quarterly in Montreal. As a performance art act, Regé performs solo as the Discombobulated Ventriloquist.”

A description of “The Cartoon Utopia” in the artist’s own words:

“At the beginning of 2008 – I started to create a series of numbered 4×6” drawings as an exercise – to start to flesh out ideas for a kind of “science fiction universe” that I’ve been slowly imagining over the last few years – the idea of a “Cartoon Utopia.” So many imagined futuristic “fantasy worlds” seem to be “dystopian” in nature –dark and pessimistic. I thought it would be nice to imagine a “futuristic” fantasy where humanity had progressed in a more positive way.”

Ron Regé, Jr, “The Cartoon Utopia”, Opening Reception
Friday, May 1, 6pm-9pm
Featuring performances by Discombobulated Ventriloquist and Dearraindrop
407 Brook Road, Richmond, Virginia 23220 (off W. Broad Street)
Complimentary cupcakes will be on hand

Luckily, people interested in learning more about Longo and Chatham’s work together can do so for free, by listening to a live interview on John Schaefer’s “New Sounds” program on WNYC, this Thursday at 2:30 pm. Even better, people who tune in to the radio interview can get a $15 discount on tickets for the show, by mentioning that they heard Rhys and Robert on the radio when they reserve spots at the Met by phone, online, or at the box office. Students and artists who mention that they are one of these things when they order the tickets are also eligible for a $15 discount.

Rhys Chatham and Robert Longo radio interview
Thursday, April 23, 2:30 pm
FM 93.9, AM 820, or streamed from the WNYC website

When: Saturday, April 25th, 7pm

Where: Observatory (same building as Proteus Gowanus, Cabinet Magazine, & Morbid Anatomy Library). 543 Union Street (at Nevins), Brooklyn, NY 11215

Subway: R/M to Union Street or F/G to Carroll St. Directions here.

Admission: Free. But bring cash for wine & copies of the gorgeous book, MYTHTYM. Trinie will be happy to sign it for you.

Some more background on Trinie Dalton:

“Trinie Dalton has long made popular zines on variety of subjects. She brings together artists, musicians, critics, novelists and cartoonists in one gorgeous stew. MYTHTYM compiles the best work from her previous zines on Werewolves, mythical beings, and the natural world. But best of all, this volume includes an entirely new, 100-page body of work on the theme of mirrors. This new section will investigate the mirror as a symbolic object in horror stories. The metaphorical mirror within the scope of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. The metaphysical implications of mirroring, especially in the ancient world of alchemy. Reflective surfaces. Disco. The mirror’s role in psychedelic, symmetrical art. The first mirrors to emerge in primitive cultures, and the roles they played in early mythologies. Mirrors as scrying tools. It can branch out from there, into light, rainbows, death, vampirism, magic. Not restricted legally to mirrors by any means. In fact if it were all about mirrors that would be too many mirrors.” — PictureBox, Inc

Download an excerpt from MYTHTYM here.

“Community Resources for People with Autism has served Western MA families since 1989. We are the ONLY Autism Support Center for all four counties of Western MA. We currently serve more than 990 families with new referrals coming to our agency every month. Our mission is to ensure that every individual with autism fulfills their highest potential and be fully included in their community. Due to the state budget crisis we are in danger of losing funding used to directly support families” (CRPA website)

Join us on Saturday, April 25 for a dance-a-thon/fundraiser with DJ Snack Attack (George Myers, of Breaking World Records and Grey Skull fame) and friends, amazing raffle prizes, food, drinks, and the knowledge that you are helping members of your community.

Saturday, April 25, 6pm – 12am
American Legion Club Post 224
190 Pleasant Street
Easthampton, MA 01027
Requested Donation of $20

For tickets, info, or to pledge, call (413) 529-2428 or visit the CRPA website.

On Sunday, April 19th, Cinema 16 returns to The Bell House in Brooklyn with another round of experimental shorts and live musical accompaniment. Brooklyn musician Julianna Barwick performs original scores to Kenneth Anger’s “Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome” (1954) and Joel Schelmowitz’ “1734” (1997), followed by a performance by Parts & Labor’s Sarah Lipstate (as Noveller), set to a selection of her own films.

Independent curator Molly Surno, who founded the series last year, offers an unusual explanation for bringing the silent film—and Cinema 16, a New York avant-garde film society founded by Amos Vogul in 1947—back to life: “In the era of silent film, live music enhanced the moving picture and brought communities together with a visceral, interactive audio-visual experience. Today, when the film experience has been reduced to the tiny screens of our laptops and ipods, oftentimes experienced alone, Cinema 16 offers a revival of community” (Bellhouse website).

Sunday, April 19th, 6pm doors, 7pm show
149 7th Street
$10, with complementary beverage
Brooklyn, NY 11215

With performances by banjo wizard Eugene Chadbourne and a bunch of New England noise-makers this week, curated by the Pioneer Valley’s own Autonomous Battleship Collective, now is as good a time as ever to make the trek out. Just don’t use a GPS: for some reason, the Bookmill’s website warns, this spot is still completely off the radar.

Dr. Eugene Chardbourne
Thursday, April 16, 8pm

Area C, Paper, Mudboy, Dark Inside the Sun
Friday, April 17, 8pm

The Montague Bookmill
440 Greenfield Road
Montague, MA 01351
Driving Directions here

A highly unusual—and oddly shamanic—reading of The Shining has been receiving a surprising amount of online attention of late. Its author, MSTRMND’s Kevin McLeod, offers a serialized guide to the Stanley Kubrick classic, blending film narrative, phenomenology, cosmology, and brain-science to explain the film as an incarnation of Meso-American visual cognition. His concept of glyphic continuum is unexplained, but, according to McLeod, “can be understood if researched,” and viewed side-by-side with the film.

Click here to the essay on MSTRMND. If you can get past the cryptic quality of the writing, you might agree that McLeod is on to something.

Celebrate the end of the nightmare that is tax day with an evening of warrior chants, tambourine tosses, and adrenaline rushes : the formidable all-female psych-rock sextet Effi Briest, the bratty forest hijinks of Nymph, and fellow New York shredders Columboid and Vaz.

Effi Briest + Vaz + Nymph + Columboid
Wednesday, April 15th, 8pm
Death by Audio
49 South 2nd Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Cheap!!!

Friday, April 10th, 9pm door
Echo Curio – The Echo Park Curiosity Shop and Art Gallery
1519 Sunset Blvd. Echo Park, CA 90026
A five buck donation is asked to support the space and artists

And this:

Bill Nace, live at That’s Not Class (Cleveland, OH), April 3rd, 2009

Remaining Dates:
April 8 – Salt Lake City, UT – Ken Sanders Rare Books – with Eagle Twin & Andy Cvar
April 10 – Portland, OR – The Artistery – with Naked Future & Powernap
April 11 – Olympia, WA – The Eagles Hall – with Arrington de Dionyso
April 14 – Hayfork, CA – TBA
April 15 – Oakland, CA – TBA
April 16 – San Francisco, CA – TBA
April 19 – Los Angeles, CA – TBA
April 22 – Albuquerque, NM – Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice – with William Fowler Collins
April 24 – Kansas City, MO – TBA