Once Again, Reasons to Drink This March

So we start with Kerouac's birthday today.
March 13.  In Bali, it is Purification Feast. Yama, Lord of Hell, sweeps demons out of his abode. They fall on Bali. Elaborate offerings draw them to one spot, where they are driven out with noise & chanting, following two days on which no work can be done. Except drink.
In March 13, 1818, John Keats, writes to Benjamin Bailey: "I am sometimes so very skeptical as to think poetry is a mere Jack-o-Lantern to whoever may chance to be struck with its brilliance."
March14 is Albert Einstein's birthday. Also pi day. you know, 3.14... Also my brother Arell's birthday. Three reasons immediately.
March 15 is RUDE AWAKENINGS DAY where EVERYTHING YOU THINK IS WRONG DAY.

In Ancient Mesopotamia: MARDUCK'S FESTIVAL. A mock-king is selected from among condemned prisoners, feasted & executed. Masters & servants change places for five days.

INTERNATIONAL DAY against Police Brutality. In March 17,1972 -- Los Angeles Radio station KHJ raided by police after calls from listeners who feared there'd been a revolution at the station from 6:00 to 7:30 in the morning. DJ Robert W. Morgan had played Donny Osmond's "Puppy Love" over & over. The police left without making any arrests. 
March 16 is Bacchus Day which among drinkers is supposedly Christmas Day. 
March 17 is St. Patricks Day, which is the continuation of Christmas although the beer should be green.  Or the bottle.
March 18. 1314 -Jacques de Molay of Knights Templar fame burned at stake. 

From the Paris Commune to the Kronstadt Rebellion
They shall rise up heroes, there will be many,
None will prevail against them at last.
They go saying each: "I am one of many";
Their hands empty save for history.
They die at bridges, bridge gates, & drawbridges.
Remember now there were others before;
The sepulchres are full at ford & bridgehead.
There will be children with flowers there,
And lambs & golden-eyed lions there,
And people remembering in the future.

— excerpt, Kenneth Rexroth, (1936)
Originally titled "March 18, 1871-1921" 

March 19. Minerva Day. Christmas for lasengga ladies. Goddess of War. 

March 20 43 -- [BC] Ovid (43 BC-17 AD) lives, Sulmona, in the Abruzzi. Banished from Rome, ostensibly for writing The Art of Love, a guide to lovemaking.
March 20, 1345 -- A triple conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter & Mars in the 40th degree of Aquarius occurring on this day is (later) given as the reason for the Black Death.
March 20, 1727 -- Sir Isaac Newton dies in London at 84. 
March 20, 1968 -- Eric Clapton & three members of the Buffalo Springfield — Neil Young, Richie Furay & Jim Mesina — arrested in Los Angeles for "being at a place where it is suspected marijuana is being used." It's a misdemeanor for which Clapton will later be found innocent, the others paying small fines.
March 21 is End of the World Day. At lest in Iran. I ran U ran we all ran from Iran
March 21, 1961 -- The Beatles play Liverpool's Cavern Club for the first time.  
In March 22, 1978 -- Puerto Rico: Karl Wallenda, age 73, dies while crossing a wire between two hotels in San Juan. He is knocked off balance by a gust of wind & falls to his death ten stories below. 
In March 22, 1968,  Raoul Vaneigem wrote in  The Revolution of Everyday Life:

'People who talk about revolution & class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love & what is positive in the refusal or constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth.'

Tis now the twenty-third of March,
And this warm sun takes out the starch
Of winter's pinafore
— Henry David Thoreau, The Freshet. Also Near Miss Day celebrating the near miss of that asteroid in 1989. You almost died you bastard so drink. 
March 24. Ancient Rome: DAY OF BLOOD, part of the FESTIVAL OF ATTIS (Hilaria). Priests gash themselves with knives in frenzied dancing to wild music, an offering to the resurrected Attis. CBCP, take note, you prudes. 
March 24, 1989 -- Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster, Prince William Sound, Alaska. 
March 25, 1955 Customs confiscate 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg's Howl as they enter the US. It will then be published by City Lights publishers in San Francisco, leading to the arrest of anarchist/poet/publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Customs also seized & destroyed another shipment of Ginsberg's poetry sent from Canada in the 60s. The day after the poet's 36th birthday—520 copies of a book his press had published were confiscated by US Customs, acting under the order of Chester McPhee, US Collector of Customs. McPhee called the book "obscene": "you wouldn't want your children to come across it," he groused. The book was "Howl & Other Poems."
March 26 is the birthday of Robert Frost. also Beat poet Gregory Corso's bday. Not a poetry fan? Birthday of Leonard Nimoy.
On March 27 to commemorate the patenting of the corkscrew, drink wine.
March 28, 1941 -- Virginia Woolf, 59, author/feminist, ends her life in the River Ouse. She leaves a note for Leonard:

"I have a feeling I shall go mad. I cannot go on longer in these terrible times. I hear voices & cannot concentrate on my work. I have fought against it but cannot fight any longer. I owe all my happiness to you but cannot go on & spoil your life."

March 29 is the Expulsion of the Demons of Bad Luck Festival in Tibet. 

March 30, 1746 -- Spanish painter Francisco Goya's Birthday. Also Vincent Van Gogh. 

March 31. Ancient Babylonia: SACRED DRAMA DAY, in which the king, in the role of Marduk, re-enacts the conquest of Tiamat, the watery chaos. Overdrink. 

 

 


 .