This May Day post of mine from 2009 includes a very timely clarifying note for anyone who happens to be stranded on a tropical island (Katherine de Chevalle, this means you)

Here is a photo taken in 1907 of May Day festivities in Maryland.


More information about May Day than you ever thought possible can be found in this article from Wikipedia, including May Day’s relationship to Walpurgis Night and Morris dancing and the May Queen and the Maypole (not to be confused with the Walpole) and even International Workers’ Day.

For example, what happens in Finland? “In Finland, Walpurgis Night is, along with New Year’s Eve and Midsommar, the biggest carnival-style festivity, taking place in the streets of Finland’s towns and cities. The celebration is typically centered on plentiful use of sparkling wine and other alcoholic beverages...From the end of the 19th century, this traditional upper class feast has been co-opted by students attending university, already having received their student cap. [Activities] include the capping of the Havis Amanda, a nude female statue in Helsinki, and the biannually alternating publications of ribald matter called Äpy and Julkku by students of the University of Technology. Both are sophomoric...”

One can only assume the article means both publications of ribald matter, not both students of Finland’s University of Technology.

In Scotland, at St. Andrews, some of the students gather on the beach late on April 30 and run into the North Sea at sunrise on May Day, occasionally naked. This is accompanied by torchlit processions and much elated celebration.

In Hawaii, May Day is also known as Lei Day. I will pause while you make up your own joke.

If you read too far in that Wikipedia article, you will learn of many lewd and lascivious connotations surrounding the celebrations of May Day as well, but I’m not going to help you find them. You’ll have to ferret them out for yourself. Instead, I leave you with this example of Morris dancing.


It must have been really difficult to find six men named Morris.

Note. It is also noteworthy to note that yelling “May Day” is not an international signal of distress. Yelling “m’aidez” (“help me” in French) is an international signal of distress.

Thank you, Dancing Itos. And now our next contestant,...

...all the way from St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Park Ridge, Illinois, here’s the St. Luke’s Bottle Band performing “Peacherine Rag” (2:02).

A couple of blasts from the past

It’s funny how an image can stick in one’s head. The photo above was taken on January 20, 2009, in Washington, D.C., at the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. The person in the photo is Rahm Emmanuel, who had served four terms as Congressional Representative from the 5th District of Illinois and was about to become the 23rd White House Chief of Staff, in which capacity he served until October 1, 2010, when he resigned to run for mayor of the great city of Chicago. He won that race and has been serving since May 16, 2011, as Chicago’s 55th mayor. I found all of this in Wikipedia, if anyone cares.

In the minds of many, mine included, Rahm Emmanuel is a rude, profane man. For example, he regularly uses language that would make a sailor blush. On this day he was thumbing his nose at someone in the crowd of onlookers. In Britain this gesture is called "cocking a snook."

According to a website called The Word Detective, to “cock a snook” at someone is a bit more elaborate than simply thumbing one’s nose. To “cock a snook” is a classic display of derision, properly performed by spreading the fingers of one hand, touching the tip of your nose with your thumb while sighting your opponent along the tips of your other fingers (what the British sometimes call a “Queen Anne’s Fan,” but what we more commonly call a “five-finger salute”), and waggling your fingers in the most annoying way possible. As a gesture, it doesn’t really mean anything, but it does convey utter contempt rather well. Like all fine insulting gestures, cocking a snook always goes well with a Bronx Cheer, or raspberry, as an accompaniment. Crossing your eyes while doing all this is optional but definitely enhances the overall effect. And remember, kids, practice makes perfect.

The Word Detective goes on to say that the phrase “thumb one’s nose” first appeared in English around 1903, but “cocking a snook” is much older, first appearing in print back in 1791. The verb “to cock” comes from strutting behavior of male chickens, and means, as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, “to turn up in an assertive, pretentious, jaunty, saucy, or defiant way.” The “snook” is of uncertain origin, but may be related to “snout,” which would certainly make sense.

But none of that is important.

What is important is that in the language used by most deaf Americans, American Sign Language (ASL), Rahm Emmanuel seems to be saying either “my father was effeminate” or “my mother was a bit butch.” Either way, his parents seem to have had gender identity issues.

Somewhere, Elizabeth Stanford-Sharpe is laughing.

Here is another image from the same day -- January 20, 2009 -- that clearly says “my milliner is on acid”:

Thoughts to think about on the day after St. George’s Day

If this (the cross of St. George) represents England (and it does):

...and this (the cross of St. Patrick) represents Northern Ireland (and it does):

...and this (the cross of St. Andrew) represents Scotland (and it does):

...and this (the flag of St. David) represents Wales (and it does):

...then why does the British flag:

contain no yellow or black?

What are the Welsh? Chopped liver?

Inquiring minds want to know.

As Mr. Spock might say, “Fascinating!”

Here is a little light reading for the day after Earth Day, a short story by Stephen Vincent Benet called By the Waters of Babylon.

Believe it or not, Benet wrote it way back in 1937.

Read it, and wonder, and weep.

Earth Day 2012

“We have met the enemy, and he is us.” --Pogo, 1971

May I just say...

Happy birthday, Jerry Ragsdale, wherever you are...