Depending upon your religous affiliation and/or your national heritage you may celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, Yom Kippur, Ramadan, Easter, Boxing Day, ANZAC Day, Chinese New Year, New Years, Corpus Christ, The Day of the Dead, Labor/Labour Day, Guy Fawkes Day or others (look here for a list of all the holidays that I could have mentioned but chose not to). But in all my extensive research (10 minutes on google and wikipedia - hurrah for a college education) I could find no country that currently celebrates one of my favorite days of the year.
THE IDES OF MARCH
This would be the point in which your boring high school teacher would go on a really, really boring rabbit trail about why its called the ides of March and would reference good 'ole Julius (who gave us a calendar, and a good definition of benevolent dictatorship), Brutus (of et tu fame), the Senate (the older, [possibly] more corrupt version - but not the Athenian one, thats too old), and other people who have been dead so long that most historians don't care about them anymore (except for the ones who are like your high school history teacher). Anyway, I don't really feel like putting all the details in for you: you don't care enough to read them and I don't care enough about your willful ignorance of western civilization.
And normally this would also be the point that I would insert portions of Julius Ceasar wherein it has been written "Beware the ides of March" and then lots of other dialogue and then "et tu Brutus?" and then a denoument. But I will refrain from those edifying quotations.
Instead I will give you the reasons for my love of this day.
1. It sounds really, really, cool. Try saying the phrase "the ides of March" without going into your scary, movie trailer guy/demonic - possession voice, try it, its just not possible to do.
2. It signaled the end of an era. After this day the Republic of Rome was no more. We get Marc and Cleopatra's rather interesting love story and Octavian, and then a line of emperors, gradually declining in authority and power that would lead inexorably to the Visigoths sacking Rome in 410, the Vandals in 455, and the eventual replacing of the Western Roman emperors with barbarian warlords in 476.
[in a short, meaningless aside: the Germanic Tribes have the absolute coolest names EVER: who would you pick in an octagon fight: a Cherokee or an Ostrogoth . . . see, not one of you could pick the Cherokee. I would link to a list of their names but I prefer not be responsible for the headless corpses that would result].
3. If its good enough for Shakespeare to immortalize its good enough to celebrate.
I've batted around ideas for how to celebrate and here's what I'm thinking. I'm going to celebrate with a traditional Roman feast complete with: toga's, cushions, a whole cow stuffed with pig stuffed with lamb stuffed with goose stuffed with chicken stuffed with pheasant, eel and fresh-caught sturgeon and my own vomitorium, then I will repose to my room and watch 300, Ben-Hur, Gladiator and A Clockwork Orange (I do have a reason for picking each of those movies); and then finish up with a little Ovid and Catullus.
But what do you think? do you have any suggestions for entertainment? food? guests? if so please let me know soon, THE IDES OF MARCH wait for no man.
And normally this would also be the point that I would insert portions of Julius Ceasar wherein it has been written "Beware the ides of March" and then lots of other dialogue and then "et tu Brutus?" and then a denoument. But I will refrain from those edifying quotations.
Instead I will give you the reasons for my love of this day.
1. It sounds really, really, cool. Try saying the phrase "the ides of March" without going into your scary, movie trailer guy/demonic - possession voice, try it, its just not possible to do.
2. It signaled the end of an era. After this day the Republic of Rome was no more. We get Marc and Cleopatra's rather interesting love story and Octavian, and then a line of emperors, gradually declining in authority and power that would lead inexorably to the Visigoths sacking Rome in 410, the Vandals in 455, and the eventual replacing of the Western Roman emperors with barbarian warlords in 476.
[in a short, meaningless aside: the Germanic Tribes have the absolute coolest names EVER: who would you pick in an octagon fight: a Cherokee or an Ostrogoth . . . see, not one of you could pick the Cherokee. I would link to a list of their names but I prefer not be responsible for the headless corpses that would result].
3. If its good enough for Shakespeare to immortalize its good enough to celebrate.
I've batted around ideas for how to celebrate and here's what I'm thinking. I'm going to celebrate with a traditional Roman feast complete with: toga's, cushions, a whole cow stuffed with pig stuffed with lamb stuffed with goose stuffed with chicken stuffed with pheasant, eel and fresh-caught sturgeon and my own vomitorium, then I will repose to my room and watch 300, Ben-Hur, Gladiator and A Clockwork Orange (I do have a reason for picking each of those movies); and then finish up with a little Ovid and Catullus.
But what do you think? do you have any suggestions for entertainment? food? guests? if so please let me know soon, THE IDES OF MARCH wait for no man.
1 comment:
personal favorite? Twelfth Night. (And yes Shakespeare figures prominently into that choice too.)
So here are some idealistic celebratory ideas for my personal favorite holiday and if you would like to take it as a suggestion for yours - and so appropriate parts of it - so be it.
Jones Soda in great quantities. (I know you said suggestions for entertainment, but we can technically count this, as it involves cool pictures and sayings)
a few chosen friends.
A TV show marathon of some sort. Things like this simply beg for marathoning, whether of similar movies or serialized TV. Twelfth Night being more festive and celebratory, we shall choose a more comedic series. Or, being it is closely associated with Christmas, just marathon the Christmas episodes of various shows. ('Dramas' may then feel free to apply. In the current arena, Bones does great Christmas episodes.)
a bottle bomb and/or pranking of some sort, at approximately 2 AM.
Post a Comment