The sky is grey, it's windy but there's no rain. People waiting at the bus stops are shivering from cold, rubbing their hands. The days are too short and the spring is still too far away. You start to comprehend that you haven't yet started your New Year's resolutions and that probably you'll never succeed with them. You lack of money because the Christmas period wasn't so long ago and you had to buy gifts. And because the Christmas break is over you have to go back to work and there is no near holiday in sight. In addition, the students must cope with approaching winter semester exams.
Doctor Cliff Arnall claims it's normal if you feel overwhelmed in the mid-January, there are many factors leading you to this depressive state. Using his observations, the psychologist came with a conception of Blue Monday, the gloomiest day of the year, which occurs (from 2011) always on the third Monday of the year. The term was born in 2004, and the first Blue Monday was "celebrated" on 24 January 2005.
A mathematical formula which helped Arnall to calculate the date on which falls the Blue Monday. (source)
Many would say that Arnall is doing a sort of pseudoscience with his calculations, but I have to admit that for real there's something unsettling in this period of the year. Hope you will not fall into this mid-January spleen.
Happy Blue Monday everyone!
PS. Arnall also calculated the date of the happiest day in the year which falls in the mid-June.
Hello, it's been a long time since I posted on this blog. Today I'd like to tell you something about Saint Sylvester's Day since in my country we do not celebrate "New Year's Eve" but "Sylvester". Sylvester I was a pope who lived in the 4th century and died on 31 December 335. By a slight chance you may already have heard of him as he was mentioned in the "Donatio Constantini", a forged document from the 8th century which was crucial in a great medieval dispute between pope and emperor. So the Pope died on today's New Year's Eve and shortly after the Church started to commemorate him every 31 December. But why do we celebrate his death day with huge parties? The legend has it that Sybille, an ancient Greek diviner predicted that in the year 1000 an enormous dragon imprisoned by the Pope Sylvester I in the caves of Latran will be freed and it'll be the end of the world. People believed that Sylvester II, a current pope, will be a one who will free the beast. So when the clock struck midnight and the dragon didn't show up, inhabitants of Rome entered in an ecstatic state and started to jubilate. This night, the Pope gave his first apostolic blessing "Urbi et Orbi" ("to the City [of Rome] and to the World").
Saint Sylvester And The Dragon, Agnolo Gaddi (14th century)
November 1902, Smedes, Mississippi. It's the second day of a presidential hunting trip in this area. The name of the main hunter is Theodor Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States. During the first two days of the trip, the president (who's a great hunting amateur) doesn't shoot a single animal, the expedition is really unfortunate for him. Yet his hunting guide finds a bear, attacks it with his hounds and ties a weakened and frightened animal to the tree. He calls the president so he can have the honour of killing the bear, but when Roosevelt arrives and sees a defenceless animal, he feels pity for it and refuses to kill the bear. A few days later the Washington Post reproduces the scene with a cartoon entitled "Drawing the Line in Mississippi".
Not long after the publication of the drawing, several toymakers saw a great opportunity in the whole incident. So they took the bear from the cartoon and turned it into a plush bear: Teddy's Bear. Everybody loved these toys and this is how the teddy bear was born. In 2002, 100 years after a memorable hunting, somebody came with a proposition of establishing a Teddy Bear Day. Today, this day is celebrated every 25 of November in Poland and September 9 in the USA.
Yet, there's the other side of the story. Let's look at the fact of how this incident and plushy industry have changed our perception of bears. Today we often perceive them as cute and cuddly animals (just think of pandas and koalas), their image is somehow mollified whereas prior to 1902 bears were seen as ferocious beasts and monsters. I really recommend watching a passionate lecture of Jon Mooallem where he shows how people are apt to change their views on animals, especially when they become an endangered species.
Kings and queens, poor and rich, insects, mammals, birds, quadruplets, reptiles, reptilians, unicorns and even Britney Spears, they have one thing in common... And more precisely: WE have one thing in common. What's that? Surely you've already made some guesses: ''is it breathing?'' you may ask. Yes, it could be a correct answer but I was thinking about something else. The thing that I'd like to discuss today belongs to a taboo set of questions and people don't talk openly about it, though it is a well-known fact (even if some people try to deny it). So the answer to my question is... everybody poops.
On 19 November we ''celebrate'' the World Toilet Day. It's an observance established by United Nations in 2001 to raise awareness of sanitary problems that the humanity has still to cope with. Yet my first impression when I found out the existence of this day was a laughter. I didn't understand why someone had an idea of creating such a bizarre observance. However, when I started to learn more about the sanitary problems that still exist in the third world countries, the importance of basic hygiene has appeared clear to me. Today's western civilisation takes for granted the existence of toilets and ignores a fact that 2.6 billion people (that is to say one-third of the world population) still don't have access to lavatories. People living in the slums have to use improvised toilets elevated on sticks above water reservoirs (if you've watched ''Slumdog Millionnaire'' I'm sure you remember a scene with this kind of cloakroom) and when some people don't have access to such a construction they just defecate on the street. Being aware of the existence of microbes, we can imagine how slums are fodder for some grave diseases. Every year 760,000 children under 5 die from diarrhoea (source).
The ''stinky problem'' is an issue we've been facing throughout our history. Even the Bible talks about defecation (Deuteronomy 23:12). The Romans had a really efficient and clean system of latrines and, what's curious, they didn't find it embarrassing to share a cloakroom with other people, the taboo didn't exist then. But with the collapse of the Roman Empire, people had forgotten the rules of sanitation and it wasn't until the mid-19th century when the western civilisation has learned again how to get rid efficiently of the faeces, though we can trace the very origins of a flushing toilet to the Elizabethan age with an invention of a certain John Harrington. What's curious, it's with the arrival of toilets universally available, that the taboo has started to grow around a defecation and today's society is in a state of denial of what is a completely natural function.
If you want to learn more about a history of toilets, the poo taboo and a problem of sanitation in third world countries, I highly recommend watching this video that I've particularly enjoyed:
PS. The fear or inability to defecate in public places is called parcopresis and inability to urinate paruresis.
Yesterday was 11 November. This date has a particular meaning in European history since 99 years ago the countries of the Entente and Germano-Austrian army signed an armistice this way finishing the Great War. This day is celebrated in many countries, not only European but also in the Commonwealth of Nations (as the Remembrance Day) and in the USA (the Veterans Day).11th of November is also an important day in my homeland - Poland. This day we're celebrating our independence (in this place, it is important to stress, for people not knowing Polish history, that in 1918 Poland was not created ex nihilo but regained its sovereignty after a long period of dependency to Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary).
The National Independence Day is a significant holiday in Poland, however, 11 November has been celebrated in European countries much longer before 1918 for another reason. On November 11 the Roman Catholic Church commemorates Saint Martin of Tours. Saint Martin was a 4th-century Roman soldier who abandoned his military service and became a priest and later a bishop of Tours. In medieval Europe the celebration of Saint Martin's Day coincided with a moment when autumn wheat seeding was completed and people were slaughtering their fattened animals due to upcoming winter (the illumination on the right comes from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry and illustrates the month of November, the fattened pigs are ready to be slaughtered).
In Poznań, a polish city where I'm studying, there's a Saint Martin's Street. Every year, on November 11 the street celebrates the name day of his saint patron with a parade. To be honest, I don't really like the parade because it is really cold this time of the year here in Poland and being motionless observing the parade only aggravates the whole situation. Despite the problem with temperature, it's an interesting holiday that has a long tradition. What I like the most about this day is the food, as this day in some polish families a goose is served for dinner. Some people (like me for example) drink mulled wine (a lot of mulled wine in my case...). And in Poznań, there's a tradition of eating the croissants of Saint Martin. The name of the croissants derivates from its shape which resembles a horseshoe that was presumably dropped by a horse of Saint Martin. Here's a recipe for this treat.
So today for my knowledge we have at least two events that are celebrated every 5th of November: the Guy Fawkes Night and the Grey-shirt Day. I think that the former event is pretty well known all around the globe - or at least well known in Europe - and even if we don't really know what happened on 5 November 1605 and why Englishmen are burning effigies of a certain Guy this particular day, we certainly do know at least the first phrase of a famous ditty which starts with: ''Remember, remember the 5th of November''. Since the Guy Fawkes Night is a too mainstream event and this blog is consecrated to more bizarre ones, I'll focus on the Grey-shirt Day.
The Grey-shirt Day is a pretty recent event. I don't know the exact date of its foundation, but it was established like three years ago. The idea was born on a site called 9gag - a page that back then I used to fun myself (its motto says: ''Go fun yourself''), but the site quickly became my main source of procrastination - besides facebook and youtube - and today I spend one hour on 9gag on average. The main purpose of the site is to gather fun content dispersed all over the web in one place, but honestly, this page is more than that. 9gag is like an autonomic community: it has its own language (memes), its own scale (a banana) and its king and queen. The reason why I love this site is not only its funny content but also this feeling of community, of making part of something bigger all over the world. The site has also a pedagogical aspect, i.e. 9gagers like to share things proper to their culture (view example here).
But 9gag has also a big problem with its users. The active community (persons who create and comment posts) is often of an introverted nature and it's not a rare problem that a 9gager has some difficulties with socialising in real life. 9gagers love to share their thoughts and knowledge in the comment section where they can find out that many people all around the globe have a similar view. But on a daily basis, it's extremely difficult for 9gagers to recognise members of the community in real life as they don't wear any distinguishing mark. So one day, someone came with an idea, that all members should wear a grey T-shirt on a particular day, for example on 5th of November and this way they could recognise other members of the community offline, in real life. So from this day 9gagers try not to forget to wear a grey T-shirt on this particular day.
Ps. I know that the title of the post is a little misleading but trust me, it was done on purpose :P
Has it ever occurred to you while browsing your favourite sites like Wikipedia, Facebook or 9gag, that you encountered information about an ''international skirt day'' or ''no bra day'' or some other equally bizarre holiday? Surely it has happened you. Today for example, according to timeanddate we should be celebrating a Candy Corn Day.
Every time I find out about another weird and absurd holiday I'm asking myself one simple question:
Why on Earth one day someone looked at candy corn and thought: ''I genuinely love candy corn, let's establish a candy corn day!'' and so he did.
The purpose of this blog is a closer look at these ''international'' and ''national'' absurd made-up days (btw. I'm curious if an ''absurd day'' already exists...). By ''closer look'' I don't mean to talk especially about that particular holiday but to consider it rather as a pretext to deal with something bigger. Also as a nearly graduated historian, I'd like to focus more specifically on the social and historical background of weird holidays. Hence if I write about a ''skirt day'' I will feel free to treat also of themes like female emancipation or dress code in working places.
See you later in few days!
And you, what is the weirdest holiday you've heard of?
