Posts Tagged ‘Holidays’
“What wine goes with Cap’n Crunch?”*…
More (and information on how to enroll) at “Why Italy is mulling wine classes for schoolchildren.”
* George Carlin
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As we sip, swirl, and spit, we might contemplate unorthodox pairings as we note that today is “National Eat What You Want Day.”
“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food”*…
click here for interactive version
Daily diets very considerably around the world; so, then, do their caloric contents. This interactive graphic from National Geographic breaks it down in a way that makes comparison– country to country, and any country to the world as a whole– easy and clear.
It’s fascinating to observe that the average for the world has risen nearly 30% in the last 50 years, to a level that’s roughly commensurate with the recommended calorie intake for an adult man; as users will see, averages for the U.S. and other developed countries are well above that… Expert opinion on the rise in obesity in the U.S. (and many other nations) is conflicted; still, it’s interesting to note the correlation.
* W.C. Fields
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As we pass on the side of bacon, we might pause to note that, while there’s no clarity as to its origin, there’s wide agreement that today is National Bagel and Lox Day, a celebration of the quintessential Jewish-American “sandwich” once found only in New York delis, but now universally popular. Bagels originated in Poland in the early 17th century. Jewish families often ate bagels on Saturday evenings at the conclusion of the Sabbath, perhaps because the they could be baked very quickly. Lox is an entirely American invention. It became a popular sandwich filling in the mid 1800s when the transcontinental railroad began shipping barrels of brined salmon to the East Coast.
Surely coincidentally, today is also National Toothache Day. Some believe the celebration can be traced to the founding of the Hersey Corporation on February 9, 1894. But others (including your correspondent) reckon that it is related to St. Apollonia, the Patroness of Toothaches, whose feast day is today.
“I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts”*…
click here for zoomable version
This crew list for the whaler Acushnet, filed with the collector of customs in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in December 1840, incudes the name and physical description of the 21-year-old Herman Melville. The list marks the beginning of the epic trip that was to provide the author with material he used to write his maritime novels Typee (1846); Omoo (1847); Mardi (1849); Redburn (1849); White-Jacket (1850); and Moby-Dick (1851).
Although he had signed up with the Acushnet’s captain Valentine Pease for a journey of four years, Melville deserted on the Marquesas Islands (now French Polynesia) 18 months into the voyage. Eleven of 26 of the Acushnet‘s crew and officers were to do the same before the trip was over. Desertions like these were not uncommon in the 18th- and 19th-century maritime world. Historian Marcus Rediker writes that desertion was one way for sailors, whose labor was often coerced or abused, to protest poor conditions on ship: extreme punishments, poor rations, voyages that were extended involuntarily.
Before he returned to Massachusetts, Melville was to live with the indigenous Taipi people; ship aboard an Australian whaler (the Lucy-Ann) where tough conditions also prevailed; be jailed for mutiny; sign onto another whaler (the Charles & Henry); spend some time in Hawaii; and return to the mainland via a stint as an enlisted seaman on the USS United States.“
Besides providing content for his future writing,” Carl E. Rollyson, Lisa Olson Paddock, and April Gentry write, “Melville’s Pacific travels also shaped the intellectual and philosophical perspectives that would mark his later work.” His complicated relationship with discipline and hierarchy, his sensitivity to the trials of the working man, and the cosmopolitan perspective that led Melville to make Queequeg one of the most sympathetic and interesting characters in Moby-Dick were all gained on this voyage.
From Rebecca Onion’s “Whaling Ship Crew List Shows Melville Embarking on a Journey That Inspired Moby-Dick.”
* Herman Melville
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As we go down to the sea in ships, we might note that this is Chaos Never Dies Day– a day of recognition of the turmoil that surrounds us. Chaos Never Dies Day is an annual occasion to admit that the perfect, quiet moment for which so many of us strive doesn’t – and likely never will – exist… and to celebrate unruly reality.
“There are two typos of people in this world: those who can edit and those who can’t”*…
We all make mistakas…
- The Wicked Bible (as it’s come to be known), published in 1631 by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas in London, offers an unusually permissive version of the Seventh Commandment
And some are funnier than others…
Webster’s chemistry editor, Austin M. Patterson, sent in a slip reading “D or d, cont./density” in 1931; but it was misinterpreted as a single word– and published in the second edition of the New International Dictionary in 1934. It was not removed until 1947.
The preface of The Vocabulary of East Anglia, by Robert Forby, 1830
Further funny faux pas at “The Most Disastrous Typos In Western History.”
* Jarod Kintz
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As we relax into Labor Day, we might pause to contemplate the commemorative and celebratory occasions sprinkled through the first month of Fall…
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SEPTEMBER is . . . National Bed Check Month, Read-A-New-Book Month, Mom & Apple Pie Month (Massachusetts), Cable TV Month, Latino Heritage Month, Be Kind to Writers & Editors Month, National Mind Mapping Month, Pleasure Your Mate Month, Board & Care Recognition Month, International Gay Square Dance Month |
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1st Week |
2nd Week |
3rd Week |
Last Week |
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Self-University Week Independence Week (Brazil) National Religious Reference Books Week Aarmus Festival Week (begins 1st Sat; Denmark) |
La Merienda Week National Mind Mapping For Project Management Week Fall Hat Week National Housekeepers Week Battle of Britain Week (Week w/15th) |
Tolkein Week National Singles Week Vitupertion Week (18th-24th) National Laundry Workers Week National Adult Day Care Center Week |
Banned Books Week National Food Service Workers Week National Dog Week National Roller Skating Week National Mind Mapping For Problem Solving Week National Pickled Pepper Week (begins Last Thurs) |
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September Movable Daily Holidays |
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Day |
Holiday |
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1st Sunday |
Working Mother’s Day Pffiferdaj (Day of the Flutes; France) Giostra del Saracino (Joust of the Saracen; Italy) |
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Saturday before Labor Day |
Capital Day |
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1st Monday |
Labor Day Settler’s Day (South Africa) Buhl Day (Sharon, Pennsylvania) Great Bathtub Race (Nome, Alaska) Box Car Day (Tracy, Minnesota) |
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1st Saturday |
Indian Day Braemar Highland Gathering (Scotland) |
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1st Sunday after Labor Day |
Grandparent’s Day |
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1st Saturday after Labor Day |
Federal Lands Cleanup Day Yellow Daisy Festival (Stone Mountain Park, Georgia) |
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1st Saturday after Full Moon in September |
Indian Day (Oklahoma) |
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2nd Sunday |
National Pet Memorial Day |
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2nd Sunday (every other year) |
Bruegel Feesten (Belgium) |
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2nd Friday after Labor Day |
The Big E begins (New England’s Great State Fair; Maine) |
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3rd Sunday |
World Peace Day Pig Face Sunday (Avening, UK) |
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3rd Tuesday |
International Day of Peace (UN) Prinsjesdag (Netherlands) |
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4th Sunday |
Good Neighbor Day |
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4th Friday |
Native American Day |
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4th Saturday |
National Hunting & Fishing Day Kid’s Day (Kiwanis Club) |
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Last Sunday |
Gold Star Mother’s Day |
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Sunday before Michaelmas (29th) |
Carrot Sunday (Scotland) |
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16 days from late September ending on 1st Sunday in October |
Oktoberfest begins (Germany) |
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Sunday before October 2nd |
Tap-Up Sunday |
And all of this is not to mention such red-letter days as Eat an Extra Desert Day (September 4), Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19), or Hug a Vegetarian Day (September 26)…
Party on!
Picking on somewhere your own size…
source (and larger view)
TotH to +Basil Doeringsfeld.
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As we ruminate on redistribution, we might note that today is “St. Distaff’s Day.” The distaff, used in spinning, was the medieval symbol of women’s work (to wit, the use of “distaff” as an adjective denoting the female side of a family). In many European cultures, women resumed their household work after the twelve days of Christmas, which ended yesterday. The tradition of St Distaff’s Day is more amusing than a simple resumption of chores however, as it involved men and women playing pranks on each other– as memorialized by Robert Herrick in his poem “Saint Distaffs Day, or the Morrow After Twelfth Day” (in Hesperides).
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