24th Sept 1991, Nirvana's album 'Nevermind' was released in America, entering the chart at No. 144 on its first week. The album which peaked at No. 1 in January 1992 has now sold over 30m copies world wide. The idea for the now iconic front cover shot of the baby swimming came after Kurt Cobain and drummer Dave Grohl saw a TV documentary on water babies. Read the full story here: http://www.thisdayinmusic.com/pages/nevermind

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Nat Turner’s rebellion begins

August 21st 1831: Nat Turner’s rebellion begins

On this day in 1831 the Virginian slave Nat Turner began the deadliest slave rebellion the United States had ever seen, which resulted in the deaths of 55 whites. Turner, a slave preacher, had come to believe that God intended for him to lead a black uprising against the injustice of slavery. In the evening of August 21st 1831, Turner and his co-conspirators met in the woods to make their plans and early the next morning began the rebellion by killing Turner’s master’s family. Turner and his men, who soon numbered over 80, then went from house to house assaulting the white inhabitants. Eventually a local militia, and then federal and state troops, confronted the rebels and dispersed the group. Turner himself initially evaded capture but was captured on October 30th. Subsequently Turner, along with over fifty other rebels, was executed. However the retribution for Nat Turner’s rebellion did not end there. The uprising sent shockwaves across the South, and while full scale rebellion such as Turner’s was rare in the Deep South due to the rigid enforcement of the slave system, caused widespread fear of another rebellion. In the ensuing hysteria over 200 innocent black slaves were killed by white mobs. Turner’s rebellion came close to ending slavery in Virginia, as in its wake the state legislature considered abolishing the ‘peculiar institution’. However the measure was voted down and instead the state decided to increase plantation discipline and limit slaves’ autonomy even further by banning them from acting as preachers and learning to read. Similar measures were adopted across the slave-holding South and thus Nat Turner’s rebellion increased the South’s commitment to slavery, despite undermining the pro-slavery argument that it was a benevolent system and slaves were content. Turner has left behind a complicated legacy, with some seeing him as an African-American hero and others as a religious fanatic and villain; his memory raises the eternal question of whether violence is justified to bring about necessary change.

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Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey in "Heavenly Creatures"

♥

CBGB movie

 OH! I hadn't heard about this movie till just now! A highly fictionalized history of CBGB's. Taylor Hawkins is playing Iggy Pop!!
Interesting...looks like it's worth a look. Hopefully it's more on par with "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll" (which was amazing and I highly recommend it) and less "What We Do is Secret" (which I thought sucked)

Monday Robert hotness

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Let's start this week off right by worshiping the golden GOD that is Robert Plant. 

 

*moment of silence*

 

AHHHH, Don't you feel better now? I do. ;)  ♥

Grow

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Woman's History Month - Me

After many pokings from various friends, a long explanation about why I got defensive about assumptions made about me on Facebook and wanting to add another post about Woman's history before Woman's History Month 2013 was over; I've decided to write about me. YAY! (Be excited damnit!)

Several people have told me after an antidote or two about my life has been divulged, that I should write a book. So I am going to give this a whirl in, at very least, blog form. Forgive me if this is disjointed, or confusing, I'll do my best to be as linear as possible, but I am gonna also write about what I remember best first probably...except for the beginning, I guess I can give you a vague idea of the beginning.

My parents are from Chicago, they met sometime in the spring or summer of 1967 I believe. At a party, they met at a party that my dad's roommates were having at the place they lived. In a house they bought collectively with money they made selling sheets of acid to the party community of Chicago. The house was on Altgeld Ave, and Lincoln. A few lots in from the street, but just around the corner from the legendary Biograph Theater where John Dillinger was shot. He always said it was fate, love at first sight. That voices told him it was her he was meant to spend the rest of his life with, but that is perhaps for another time, before I melt into a puddle of tears...

My mother moved to Quebec, Canada with her family when her father's job moved him there. My daddy moved to Los Angeles. Why, I'm not exactly sure...adventure I suppose...it didn't occur to me when running over this idea of biography in my mind how many questions were going to come up or how sad it was going to make me to not have my parents to ask...fuck. Especially since my father is still so alive in my mind that I could just call him...but, he is in fact no longer there to call...fuck.

Anyhow, I was born OK? In January of 1982, at UCLA hospital in Westwood California. I was both conceived and raised in Venice, California. I lived there till I was 18 and we were thrown out. My entire 31 years on this planet and I have moved 4 times and lived within a 30 mile radius of where I was born. I have a few, very specific memories of my young years, most of my real memory of my life comes in after the age of 11. My boyfriend thinks this is funny, and we've talked about how funny memories are because he is excatly the opposite.

One of my very first memories is of stepping on a bee, in order to kill it I suppose, and the stinger sticking in my big toe of my left foot. My older sister was with me (here I guess I should mention I am the middle child. I have one older sister, 11 years my senior and 1 younger sister, 1.5 years my junior. Odd age separations my mother informed me due to all of us being mistakes), I think she was the one to pull the stinger out. I have vague memory of her yelling across the lawn at my mom that I stepped on a bee. I think we were standing next to the night blooming jasmine plant in the north-west corner of the yard that wrapped all the way around the duplex we lived in, but I may be wrong here.

The lot where I grew up is still there. The house (well, apartment actually) is not. It was torn down by the people that bought the building after we were evicted in June 2000. It is a large, artsy, glass two story monstrosity reminiscent of Delia Deetz's dream home in Beetlejuice...