🔭 The Holidays Essay

Doesn't matter when you read this: The world's getting stranger. If there's anything you can do, I’d greatly appreciate it. Like, share, hoodie up, and 3D print a headline if that's your jam. But keep in mind those are checkers moves in a free-diving, underwater game of Dejarik versus a rabid Wookie pimp with IBS. And he wants his money now, like in that hotel scene from “The Catcher in The Rye.” And there's no sketchy ATM to cash out those $TRUMP meme coins you swear you bought as a joke during the Super Bowl. If you really want to slay the hydra, non-age specific Padawan, you need Greek Fire. First, get some Styrofoam and gasoline, then —

DING!

Sorry, that's the end of my uber-Pomodoro set, which means we have to press pause on this installment of The Can-archist's BookNook. I'll see you after my holiday. Meanwhile, good luck taking down the system from the outside without the aid of a tax-subsidized foreign intelligence agency illegally roofieing their own citizens and… 

Sorry, I recently finished “CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties,” and just got an extra root canal on the same tooth because it turns out I have more nerves than normal, plus I haven't had a drink in ten months, so I'm in a bit of a mood. To top it off, someone slipped me a pamphlet quoting Noam “Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously” Chomsky at an Anti-Flag show at the turn of the century, and I never fully recovered. I should also apologize for—and this one's really embarrassing—using “holiday” to mean “vacation.”

Holidays are quite literally holy days and shouldn't be taken lightly or between mealtimes. And we've got a retro Cuban raft load this month. Without resorting to actual research, there's April Fool's Day, the fluffy tail end of the Shrove/Ash/Good/Palm conga line, Passover, Post-Ramadan Daylight Fuckfest, 4/20, my cat Pirkka's birthday, my ex-wife's birthday, and Earth Day. And there's the “Kingdom of Loathing” equivalents as well as Actually Ed the Undying run Easter Eggs. (Carnival would be brutal in a meat-based economy.) Is there holiday swag in “Dandy's World”? I'll ask my daughter…

 Christmas-Toons-something-something. Sorry, we got distracted taking quizzes to figure which character we are. (“I'm not Shrimpo!”/“That's exactly what Shrimpo would say!”/“I am NOT Shrimp or you're not allowed to play that game ever again!”) We also took quizzes about characters' pronouns, which got me thinking about other horror franchises and how, if asking after pronouns had been SOP in the '80s, “Friday the 13th” and “Sleepaway Camp” would've had shorter runtimes.

Okay, let's resort to actual research.

NationalToday.com, a website I know nothing about, has lots of semi-plausible celebrations. Check out Edible Book Day, Be Kind to Spiders Week, and National Frog Month. There are also enough days raising awareness of heritages, disabilities, illnesses, and disadvantaged people to blow out the veiny forehead of that neighbor your mother-in-law invited for White Thanksgiving.

Everyone likes a holiday. No, wait, they're depressing. You can't even watch TV specials without girding your loins for death. Especially Christmas specials. Especially, especially British Christmas specials. Especially, especially, especially British Christmas specials featuring Ed Howser-Black. Even watching Nick and Joe and the “The More You Battle” George “is Twice The Knowing” from Found Footage Festival riff on “Shaturday Morning Cartoons” is dicey. (Their edits are likewise questionable. That was the only time I didn't tear up during “Ziggy's Gift,” to say nothing of the Dinosaucers Dinosaur Day special.)

You know, this might be a “me thing.” My grandfather and namesake loved holidays. That's when the whole family got together. Well, the Italian half. They'd play cards, definitely not discuss mob stuff, and there were definitely no montages. I woke up early one morning and talked to Pap Pap right before he died. I'll never forget his last words: “Merry Christmas.” Actually, his last words were probably “oh, shit!” a few minutes later when he had a heart attack, but the whimsical version makes for cheaper psychoanalysis.

What was I on about? Oh, holidays. Out with the old, in with the new. If it's got a Google Doodle, it's for the chop. Observing expired celebrations is like using predictive text: lazy blue bowling ball.

My wife and I make up holidays. And you can, too. (Abracadabra; you now have as much calendar agency as Congress.) Most of them have dirty names that make our sex life sound more innovative than it really is. We also have one for our dead friend where we add to an epic poem about his favorite D&D character. (We're a Pathfinder family, but Jon, like all my friends who've done hard time, favored rules-light systems.) We also set aside a whole week for The Sheepherders, aka The Bushwackers, when we reread their autobiography, “Blood, Sweat, & Cheers,” in dodgy Kiwi accents. There's also a day for eating nachos.

Possibilities abound. And in these troubling times between the ascension of Disney IPs and the fall of Abrahamic idols, we can all agree the world needs more dirty limericks and Mexican food. 'Tis the season.