New Year's Humbug
New Year’s Eve.
The Biggest Non-Event of the year, and the last non-event of the year. Also, more ominously, the entrance into the desolate armpit of the year.
The Holidays (as we have to say now, so that faith-based political-correctness can engulf everything – the rule being to mention God on every possible inappropriate occasion, such as in the courts, at football matches, at political rallies, at military events, but never mention her at the usual times of yore like Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Advent, Good Friday, Ramadan, Channukah, Yom Kippur, - “Happy Holidays! And God Bless Texas!”) …the Holidays have been coming at us for months, accelerating, getting closer together, with Labor Day, then Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, and now - - - - ???
February: time to celebrate Seasonal Affective Disorder, either by hiding in the fetus position reading Sylvia Plath in the newly restored original edition, or sitting staring at a brightly shining expensive blank wall. Apart from that, the new year grants us the coldest days, continuing gloom, and all those official holidays nobody pays any attention to. Martin Luther King Day and the various Presidents, snuck in on Mondays so you won’t notice them. It works! And if you think about why we have MLK day, it doesn't exactly make for relaxing bonhomie, more an occasion for collective guilt. And the Presidents? We should be having a holiday because we love Presidents!!? I don’t think so.
Any proper holiday has to fall on an unpredictable day, like Christmas and New Year, so that you have to pay attention, or else always be in the middle of the week, like Thanksgiving, so that it messes up work schedules, and gets us a day off. Mondays in February because of moral leaders? Sorry, doesn’t cut it. And New Year’s is just a drunken "Waiting for Godot". We need to get into sync with the people who really know how to party. That's why I recommend
MARDI GRAS!!
In New Orleans (where my son Sebastian was born) it will already be underway by the time this hits cyberspace. It’s grandly symphonic, with endless rehearsals so that, when the day comes, you can do it right. Being on a Tuesday it smashes the week to pulp. It’s religious in origin, therefore compulsory, but the name Mardi Gras has nothing to do with religion (passes the Happy Holidays! test) and most people don’t even know that it means "Fat Tuesday, The Festival of St. Atkins." You won’t hear many references to God on Mardi Gras, not even “God Bless the Bars of Bourbon St.” Slap-bang in the midst of the armpit of the year, it is quickly followed by St. Patrick’s Day.
It’s early this year because Easter is early. You know how to calculate Easter? There’s a simple rhyme that helps. It goes like this:
No need for confusion
If we but recall,
That Easter on the
Sunday immediately following the first full moon that occurs right after the vernal
Equinox doth fall.
So Mardi Gras is on February 8th in 2005; that’s just 39 days away. I’ll be ready. There’s too much work done in this country, or at least, too much time spent at work, and it needs to be kept under control. The only reason Mardi Gras isn’t everywhere? – the boss wouldn’t like it. You know the guy; Ebenezer Scrooge.
As soon as you realize New Year did nothing for you, let’s all commit to Mardi Gras. With St. Pat. on March 17th, a Thursday, we’ll be well on our way to May Day, which everybody celebrates except us! Southerners seem to have a lock on our politics. We should give in, and accept the universal necessity of Mardi Gras.
Laissez les bon temps roulez!
Mardi Gras
The Biggest Non-Event of the year, and the last non-event of the year. Also, more ominously, the entrance into the desolate armpit of the year.
The Holidays (as we have to say now, so that faith-based political-correctness can engulf everything – the rule being to mention God on every possible inappropriate occasion, such as in the courts, at football matches, at political rallies, at military events, but never mention her at the usual times of yore like Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Advent, Good Friday, Ramadan, Channukah, Yom Kippur, - “Happy Holidays! And God Bless Texas!”) …the Holidays have been coming at us for months, accelerating, getting closer together, with Labor Day, then Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, and now - - - - ???
February: time to celebrate Seasonal Affective Disorder, either by hiding in the fetus position reading Sylvia Plath in the newly restored original edition, or sitting staring at a brightly shining expensive blank wall. Apart from that, the new year grants us the coldest days, continuing gloom, and all those official holidays nobody pays any attention to. Martin Luther King Day and the various Presidents, snuck in on Mondays so you won’t notice them. It works! And if you think about why we have MLK day, it doesn't exactly make for relaxing bonhomie, more an occasion for collective guilt. And the Presidents? We should be having a holiday because we love Presidents!!? I don’t think so.
Any proper holiday has to fall on an unpredictable day, like Christmas and New Year, so that you have to pay attention, or else always be in the middle of the week, like Thanksgiving, so that it messes up work schedules, and gets us a day off. Mondays in February because of moral leaders? Sorry, doesn’t cut it. And New Year’s is just a drunken "Waiting for Godot". We need to get into sync with the people who really know how to party. That's why I recommend
MARDI GRAS!!
In New Orleans (where my son Sebastian was born) it will already be underway by the time this hits cyberspace. It’s grandly symphonic, with endless rehearsals so that, when the day comes, you can do it right. Being on a Tuesday it smashes the week to pulp. It’s religious in origin, therefore compulsory, but the name Mardi Gras has nothing to do with religion (passes the Happy Holidays! test) and most people don’t even know that it means "Fat Tuesday, The Festival of St. Atkins." You won’t hear many references to God on Mardi Gras, not even “God Bless the Bars of Bourbon St.” Slap-bang in the midst of the armpit of the year, it is quickly followed by St. Patrick’s Day.
It’s early this year because Easter is early. You know how to calculate Easter? There’s a simple rhyme that helps. It goes like this:
No need for confusion
If we but recall,
That Easter on the
Sunday immediately following the first full moon that occurs right after the vernal
Equinox doth fall.
So Mardi Gras is on February 8th in 2005; that’s just 39 days away. I’ll be ready. There’s too much work done in this country, or at least, too much time spent at work, and it needs to be kept under control. The only reason Mardi Gras isn’t everywhere? – the boss wouldn’t like it. You know the guy; Ebenezer Scrooge.
As soon as you realize New Year did nothing for you, let’s all commit to Mardi Gras. With St. Pat. on March 17th, a Thursday, we’ll be well on our way to May Day, which everybody celebrates except us! Southerners seem to have a lock on our politics. We should give in, and accept the universal necessity of Mardi Gras.
Laissez les bon temps roulez!
posted by Andrew Massey | Friday, December 31, 2004
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