April Fool's Day

Another year, another April Fools' Day, and I haven't played a joke or had one played on me. In fact, it's been years since someone has fooled me and even longer since I've been fooled. I guess traditions are made to be broken, and I'll now almost certainly fall for something later today.

April Fools' Day is one of those holidays that has apparently gained more cultural cachet with the increasing prominence of social networking. Post after post on my timeline has paid some lip service to the time honored tradition of fooling one's friends, family, and acquaintances. Fake news stories find a ready audience on Facebook and twitter. Although not as ubiqitous as yesterday's opening day baseball posts, there is still something about April Fools' Day that resonates in the national (and international) zeitgeist. A day to drop all the stress and drama in order innocently fool our peers appeals to the embittered psyche.

If it happened on the opening day of baseball season, there would invariably be a plethora of baseball related practical jokes and new urban legends, stemming from our fascination with the sport. While probably not as literate or historically considered as the songs on the new Baseball Project record, 3rd, they would undoubtedly further the mythos of both baseball and April Fool's joke traditions.

April Fools' Day is part of a long tradition of other holidays that celebrated the joke and the hoax. The Roman Festival Hilaria, celebrated for Cybele on the Vernal Equinox, and the Medieval Feast of Fools on December 28th are two precursors that are still celebrated in some countries. Different countries each have their own traditions for the day, depending on the national sense of humor and sensibility. In the UK, people that play jokes after midday are considered to be the fool, so getting the joke in early is considered proper. Purportedly, there is an Irish tradition of delivering a letter that reads "send the fool further."

April Fools' Day isn't serious, but not all holidays have to be. It allows people to let off steam after the winter is over, which is especially important this year because the poor weather has cramped everyone's style. Jokes are an excellent way to express what we are feeling, while April Fools' Day is a great way to carry on an amusing human tradition, adding our own stamp to the mix. All I can say is: "Bring it on. I dare you to fool me." I can give as good as I get.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Contractions: Henry Standing Bear's Ethical Code

Image
I recently finished watching the last season of Longmire , a show that I believe only got better when it moved to Netflix. A & E cancelled it, despite good ratings, because it did not directly appeal to the 18-35 age demographic. The writing and plot development improved as the show started focusing more on major themes and story lines and not story-of-the-week subplots. While the show's general premise is typical cop show fare, the strong characterization and settings give the show a primacy over similar procedurals. While I enjoyed the show, I never got around to reading the books even though I watched dutifully for six seasons. Once I started reading The Cold Dish , I realized how hard it will be not to binge the book series. The books are a treat. Craig Johnson's prose is punchy, and the characters are even better realized. Walt Longmire's love for Rainier beer and obscure literary metaphors, as well as other character's predilections and habits, become crys...
Read more

Do you remember huH Magazine?

Image
The other day when I was writing the "Track This" for Jawbox's "Cooling Card," something jogged my memory about music magazines I had read in my formative years, particularly those published while I was still in High School. Many, if not most, of them are gone now. They gave way to blogs and online publications. These include zines like Flipside , which covered mainstream and underground bands -- they also had some of my favorite columnists of all time, Punk Planet , which ventured further into Indie rock as it progressed, and MRR , which is still going strong. The magazines that I read often included Alternative Press and Magnet , as well as Ray Gun Publishing's huH which turned me on to a ton of great music because it included a cd with each issue that served as a sampler for what had been released that month, divided by genre. While other magazines did this, huH undoubtedly was more inclusive in the types of bands these cds covered. In fact, these col...
Read more

Cal Smith: "So Long, Country Bumpkin"

Image
Cal Smith, born Calvin Grant Shofner on April 7, 1932, died on October 10. He was best known for the 1974 hit, "Country Bumpkin." A tangible part of my childhood, the song still echoes in my head whenever pumpkins are displayed or the newest batch of Pumpkin ales hits the store shelves.  Where I grew up in Northern Wisconsin, the old  Blues Brothers  adage rang true that there were two kinds of music, "country and western." My parents always listened to country music in our house (My mom preferred '90s country radio) and there was always a bunch of western in there as well.(Mostly from my dad). I remember hearing "Streets of Bakersfield" often drifting from car radios and home stereos. I developed an early attraction to some of these songs, even though years later I would hide it behind a sheen of four chords and punk rock. A secret shadow self of country knowledge and Western Swing bravado remained, only unsheathed for music trivia and in the dar...
Read more