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October 27 is Sylvia Plath Day

October 27, 2017/0 Comments/in October

Is it possible to wish someone a Happy Sylvia Plath Day? How can anyone celebrate the birthday of a woman who killed herself? Is this a joke? Is it sponsored by some brand of oven cleaner? We found evidence that this holiday exists:

From the Sylvia Plath Forum:

To all avowed Sylvia Plath supporters and admirers:

I am with the Sylvia Plath day organizing committee. Let me explain: over 1,000 people signed a petition just recently in the city of Northampton, Ma to have a Sylvia Plath Day. The Mayor, consumed by the irresistible force of Plath petition signers/supporters then declared October 27, 2001 Sylvia Plath Day. As you know, Sylvia Plath attended Smith College in Northampton. We are planning a big celebration of the life and legacy of Sylvia Plath on October 27 of this year. We can use your help!

Michael
Northampton, Ma, USA
Friday, April 27, 2001

Unfortunately, we could find no Northampton public records to confirm the mayor was indeed “consumed by the irresistible force.” But if we still pore over her work and the minutia of her life over fifty years after her death, does it matter if it’s official or not?

Published under a pseudonym

Of course, we remember Sylvia Plath because she wrote The Bell Jar, required reading for many in high school. And, like it or not, we remember her because she committed suicide. We study her poetry and prose, trying to divine what fueled her despair, what caused her to take her own life. Plath wrote this in her journal a few months before her death:

I feel outcast on a cold star, unable to feel anything but an awful helpless numbness. I look down into the warm, earthy world. Into a nest of lovers’ beds, baby cribs, meal tables, all the solid commerce of life in this earth, and feel apart, enclosed in a wall of glass.

Plath wrote poetry in a confessional style, revealing intimate details about herself. She was driven, publishing her first poem when she was eight. She was the first poet awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize. She also wrote fifty short stories and one novel, The Bell Jar.

In February of 1963, her depression overcame her. For weeks, her doctor had tried to secure a bed for her in a psychiatric hospital. She sealed her children in their room upstairs, then sealed herself in the kitchen, put her head in the oven and turned on the gas. She was thirty years old.

On Sylvia Plath Day, instead of fetishizing her death or lamenting the loss of all she might have written, we can celebrate her life by learning about her, reading her work and being happy for what she shared with us in her short yet brilliant life.

It’s a day we should also acknowledge the brutal power of mental illness to damage and destroy lives.

Learn more at:
Neurotic Poets
BenGuinter.com
This Day in History
Sylvia Plath and the Mythology of Women Readers: 2011, Univ. of Massachusetts Press

If you are thinking about suicide, read this first.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline website and toll-free telephone number: 1 (800) 273-8255

April 27 is Matanzas Mule Day

April 27, 2017/0 Comments/in April

visual approximation

Today is Matanzas Mule Day. While Mule Appreciation Day (October 26) honors mules in general, today’s holiday is dedicated to one special mule.

On April 27, 1898, during the Spanish-American War, the U.S. Navy fired upon the coastal town of Matanzas, on Cuba’s northern shore. When the smoke cleared, the villagers discovered one casualty: a mule.

Perhaps to express their outrage at the attack, they held a funeral for the mule and buried it with full military honors. (Of course, we can’t discount the possibility that they just really loved that mule.) Word of the memorial spread, along with disbelief.

On August 5, 1898, the New York Times printed an eyewitness account given to the London Globe. Chief Officer Smails of the Myrtledene, a steamship in the area to pick up sugarcane, confirmed the story and reported that he had attended the funeral at the invitation of a Spanish dockworker. He described the scene:

“Altogether there were about 200 persons present, including many distinguished officers. They all walked in mournful procession to the final resting place of the ill-fated animal, a band rendering melancholy music all the while. The authorities were also present to give the obsequies an official aspect. At the grave more appropriate music was played, and eloquent addresses were made by Spanish officers….Then the signal for lowering the carcass into the earth was given. The body went down enveloped in the Spanish flag, amid a volley of musketry!”

The Times article concludes with three unattributed verses one could reasonably assume were an ode to a fallen comrade.

They marshaled men of every rank,
They summoned muffled guns to roll,
They called the merchant from the bank,
They caused the Church’s bell to toll.

And slowly to his grave they passed,
Obeying every martial rule,
And there with tears they took a last,
Long look at that bombarded mule.

Wrapped in the flag he served so well.
Amid a cloud of smoke he sank;
“The Slain” – by tons of shot and shell –
Went under with a round of blank.

We’re fairly sure it wasn’t sung at the funeral. In fact, since it would have been written in Spanish, that’s either an excellent translation—complete with rhyming—or the newspaper of record was having fun heaping ridicule on a small town and, by extension, the enemy.

May you have a better Matanzas Mule Day than the mule did!

March 17 is St. Patrick’s Day

March 17, 2017/0 Comments/in March

St. Patrick

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, the rare religious holiday that everybody celebrates. Everybody.

It’s believed he was born in Roman-ruled Britain in 385 AD. At age sixteen, he was kidnapped by marauders who took him to Ireland and sold him into slavery. Several years later, Patrick had a religious experience in which God told him to flee to the coast, where a ship would be waiting to take him home. When he got back, he became a priest.

Later, he returned to Ireland as a missionary and carried a shamrock, which has three leaves, to help explain the trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. He may have used it to appeal to pagans who worshiped nature or believed in triple deities. One thing is certain: the four-leaf clover has nothing to do with St. Patrick’s Day.

Patrick is said to have converted thousands. The story that he drove all the snakes out of Ireland probably refers to his efforts to rid the country of Druids, members of a religious sect who were often labeled as sorcerers. There have never been any snakes in Ireland, except for those in zoos.

Patrick died of natural causes on March 17, 461. Today, people around the world will celebrate the 1,555th anniversary of his death. The rules governing Lent–prayer, fasting, penance, etc.–are lifted today, which may help explain why St. Patrick’s Day has become associated with parades and parties and drinking to excess.

St. Patrick isn’t officially a saint. The Roman Catholic Church had no canonization process in place at the time. Still, by sheer force of numbers, he is celebrated more than any other saint. His appeal has grown far beyond that of a religious icon; he is a cultural superstar. So raise a glass, sing an Irish Rovers tune at the top of your lungs and, whatever you do, have a happy St. Patrick’s Day!

March 15 is the Ides of March

March 15, 2017/0 Comments/in March

Caesar was killed on this spot.

Today is the Ides of March, which marks the date in 44 B.C. that Julius Caesar was assassinated.

To learn why it was called the Ides of March, we need to take a look at the Roman calendar in use 2,060 years ago. Days of the year weren’t not numbered sequentially. Instead, each month had three division days: Kalends, Nones and Ides.

Kalends always fell on the first day of the month. The Nones fell on the fifth, except in months that had fewer than 31 days. In March, May, July and October, the Nones fell on the seventh. The Ides occurred eight days after the Nones. Easy, right?

Not so fast. Some histories report that the Ides were considered a time to pay debts and settle accounts. It also appears that the Ides stood not just for one day but the following month. This is important to the understanding the events leading up to the assassination of Julius Caesar.

William Shakespeare studied the writings of Plutarch when crafting Julius Caesar, so even though he used poetic license when penning the famous line, “Beware the Ides of March,” he based the scene surrounding it upon a real occurrence. To wit: there was a soothsayer named Spurinna, who warned Caesar of his rapidly-approaching fate.

Spurinna was a haruspex, one who discovered and interpreted omens by inspecting the entrails and organs of animal sacrifices. He hailed from Etruria, known for its training in divination. Etruscans were accorded high social status in Rome. Spurinna had access to prominent citizens and was undoubtedly privy to gossip and rumors, which could only help him in his occupation.

Caesar was not well-liked. He had brazenly taken a foreigner (Cleopatra) as his mistress. He had declared himself dictator perpetuo, dictator in perpetuity, on February 14th, spurring fears he would declare himself king and do away with the Senate altogether.

On February 15th, Caesar consulted Spurinna. A bull was sacrificed and its innards interpreted. Spurinna announced a bad omen: the bull had no heart. It’s a testament to belief that no one demanded to inspect the body or asked how the animal survived to adulthood, until its sacrifice, without a heart.

Spurinna told Caesar to beware the next 30 days, not just March 15th. Was it sound advice by way of divination, an educated guess or something more? It was common knowledge that Caesar was scheduled to leave Rome on March 18th to lead his army on a military campaign that would last for years. The assassins had to strike before then.

According to historian Barry Strauss, author of The Death of Caesar: The Story of History’s Most Famous Assassination, Caesar took the warning seriously. He had no intention of attending the Senate meeting on March 15th. His wife Calpurnia awoke that morning from a nightmare that he’d been murdered, which strengthened his resolve to stay home.

He almost made it but succumbed to peer pressure when his friend Decimus, whom you’ve probably never heard of, came to his home and goaded him into attending. He told Caesar the Senate would brand him a tyrant, that everyone would laugh at him and think him weak and feeble-minded for allowing himself to be cowed by a woman’s dream and a fool’s omen.

The ploy worked. Decimus persuaded his friend to walk into the arms of his killers. Caesar never cried out in anguish, “Et tu, Brute?” The phrase has become shorthand for the experience of being stabbed in the back–hopefully metaphorically–by someone close. But Caesar and Brutus were never friends.

He must have been shocked to see Decimus stabbing him but didn’t call out his name, either. He was too busy trying to fight back and escape. Of course, he had no chance against the men surrounding him. Many of the 23 wounds occurred after he was dead; they took turns sticking him so they could all claim a role in the assassination.

Even in death, Caesar had a surprise in store, In his will, Caesar bequeathed a large cash payment to every citizen and soldier. He posthumously adopted Octavian as his heir and left him three-quarters of his private fortune to help him purchase the love of the populace and the loyalty of the military.

After years of civil war, Octavian became sole ruler of the Roman Empire. The fight for a new republic, which had driven men to slay their leader, was lost.

It seems all Romans would have done well to beware the Ides of March.

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