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International Pancake Day

Today is International Pancake Day, but it’s not about eating pancakes. It celebrates a race that was first run in 1445 by housewives in Olney, England. Since 1950, the townsfolk compete against each other and the women of Liberal, Kansas.

According to legend, the tradition dates back to 1445 in Olney. A housewife was making pancakes, hurrying to use up the cooking fat forbidden during Lent. When she heard the church bells ring calling the townspeople to the Shrove Tuesday service, she donned the headscarf required in church and ran there, carrying the pan and wearing her apron.international pancake day

It made such an impression that other women in the congregation duplicated her run the following year, turning it into a race. The person who made it to the church steps first would flip her pancake and receive a blessing and a “Kiss of Peace” from the bell-ringer. Falling as it did on the day before Lent, a 40-day period of fasting and prayer, the race gave rise to a full day of celebration.

The local tradition has continued ever since. There have been lapses in its observance through the centuries, but the race has never been completely forgotten. One of those lapses occurred during World War II. Reverend Canon Ronald Collins, Vicar of Olney, revived the race in 1948. While tidying up a cupboard, he discovered photos taken in the 1920s and 1930s of women running with pans.

Excited to bring back the ancient custom, he asked for volunteers for the race. Thirteen runners participated that year. The townsfolk embraced the practice anew, happy to honor Olney’s colorful history and enjoy themselves with a day of festivities.

Pancake Day Jumps the Pond

In 1950, Liberal, Kansas Jaycee president R.J. Leete saw magazine photographs of Olney women racing each other to the church. He wanted to start a similar tradition, so he contacted Reverend Collins and challenged the women of Olney to race against the women of Liberal.

Olney accepted the challenge and the two towns have competed every year since, exchanging prizes and keeping score via a live Web link. (Headscarves and aprons are still required.)

In the time-honored American tradition of doing everything bigger, the holiday in Liberal has expanded into a four-day event, with pancake eating and flipping contests, a parade, a beauty pageant and a talent show.

As of 2015, Liberal has won 37 times; Olney, 28.  In 1980, the scores were thrown out because a media truck blocked the finish line in Olney. The results of today’s race will be available here later today. We wish good luck to all the runners and a happy International Pancake Day to us all.

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

January 1 is First Day of Shakespeare400

shakespeare400Shakespeare400 is an umbrella term for dozens of events in the United Kingdom scheduled throughout 2016 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and his (mostly) posthumous effect on world culture.

The year’s activities will highlight the many art forms the Bard has influenced by sponsoring theatre, music, opera, dance and educational programs to reach new audiences outside the limiting “heritage industry framework” organizers say is too often imposed on Shakespeare.

It would seem to us that Shakespeare might find the derogatory talk of “heritage industry” to be a fusty nut with no kernel. He is arguably the most famous playwright in the world. His work has entertained us for more than 400 years. There would be no quaternary honor of William Shakespeare if he needed the marketing efforts of the organizers to “get his name out.”

May we suggest to the organizers–in their zeal to reach new audiences–something that young and old alike will enjoy? Why not have the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) mount a production of the Klingon translation of Hamlet? The Klingon Shakespeare Restoration Project (KSRP) was created in 1995 by the nonprofit Klingon Language Institute (KLI).

KSRP took its inspiratioshakespeare400n from two Klingon characters in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. General Chang barks, “To be or not to be?” (taH pagh taHbe’). Chancellor Gorkon says, “You haven’t experienced Shakespeare until you’ve read it in the original Klingon.”

The “restored” texts of  Hamlet (Hamlet) and Much Ado about Nothing (paghmo’ tIn mIS–lit. the confusion is great because of nothing) have been published. Midsummer Night’s Dream (bov tuj botlh naj) has been completed but not yet released.

So what do you say, Shakespeare400 organizers? According to the Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, there are more than 80 spellings of his name. There is no evidence he ever spelled it “Shakespeare.” Why not add one more to the mix:  Wil’yam Sheq’spir?

Banished Words List Day of 2015

banished words list daySince 1976, Lake Superior State University (LSSU) has issued an annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-Use, Over-Use or General Uselessness. LSSU accepts nominations for banishment from around the globe, covering all manner of words and phrases worthy of exile.

Without further ado, we bring you the Banished Words List of 2015

Bae
Polar vortex
Hack
Skill Set
Swag
Foodie
Curate/Curated
Friend-raising
Cra-cra (cray-cray)
Enhanced interrogation
Takeaway
____-Nation (sports)

Our Favorites from 2014

Selfie (named Word of the Year by Oxford Dictionary!)
Hashtag
_____ On Steroids
_____ –Ageddon
_____–Pocalypse
Twerk
Twittersphere

Words and phrases banished in previous years include: Pre-Plan, Quality Time (’85); Conferenced, Free Gift (`88); Infotainment, Forced Relaxation (’89); Minor Emergency Clinic,  A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste (’90); My Bad, Talk to the Hand (’98); Metrosexual, Companion Animals (’04); Gitmo, We’re Pregnant (’07); Man Cave, Pet Parent (’12).

University officials note that even with this year’s focus on elections, most entries do not concern politics. Nominations for the 2016 list roll in via e-mail at a steady pace from the fields of academia, advertising, business, the military, sports, as well as politics.

We can’t wait to see the newest entries!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting

The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree has become a worldwide symbol of the holiday season. The lighting on the Wednesday after Thanksgiving is celebrated with live musical performances at Rockefeller Plaza and broadcast across the globe and Internet.

What’s the story of this tree? Worldwide Weird Holidays investigates.

The Giving TreeRockefeller center christmas tree lighting

Gardiner, New York has one less resident today: a 10-ton, 78-foot-tall Norway Spruce we’ll call Bruce. Bruce comes to us courtesy of a very large saw and the Asendorf family, who’d enjoyed his company on their front lawn for over 40 years. After nearly chopping him down for firewood last year, they contacted Rockefeller Center’s head gardener and chief Christmas tree hunter, Erik Pauzé. He visited, liked what he saw and Bruce’s fate was decided.

On Friday, Bruce was cut down and loaded with the help of a 280-ton hydraulic crane and fifteen giant-tree specialists onto a custom-made telescoping trailer which can stretch to 100 feet and accommodate a tree up to 125 feet tall, although the width of New York City streets limits the height to 110 feet.

rockefeller center christmas tree lighting

Bruce was then bound like Gulliver and taken from his home in the middle of the night, traveling toward New York City on a route carefully plotted by a committee of local and city planners, under the watchful eye of a police escort.

rockefeller center christmas tree

Once at the Rockefeller Center,  the same crane that had loaded him onto the trailer was used to fix Bruce into place by skewering his trunk onto a steel spike. Guy wires were attached to Bruce’s midsection to hold him upright and scaffolding was erected to assist workers in draping him with over 30,000 lights strung on more than five miles of electrical wire. Since 2007, the tree has been “green” (evergreen?), using LED lights.

The StarRockefeller center christmas tree lighting star

Bruce will have a fabulous, if hefty, headpiece. In 2004, the old fiberglass star decorated with gold leaf was replaced by the Swarovski Star, designed by German artist Michael Hammers. It weighs 550 pounds, is 9.5 feet in diameter and sports 25,000 crystals with a million facets. In 2009, Hammers decided to upgrade the star’s lighting system by adding 720 tiny white LEDs and 3,000 feet of wire to the star’s interior, which were then connected to 44 circuit boards.

That’s a lot of look.

History

Although the official Christmas tree tradition began in 1933, the year 30 Rockefeller Plaza opened, the practice began during its Depression-era construction, when workers decorated a smaller twenty-foot-high balsam fir tree with “strings of cranberries, garlands of paper, and even a few tin cans” on Christmas Eve of 1931, according to Daniel Okrent’s Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center

rockefeller center christmas tree lighting history

In the photo above, construction workers receive their paychecks next to the Christmas tree they’d set up on the Rockefeller Center site. Pauzé estimates from the number of tree rings that Bruce is approximately 80 years old, so he was likely a sapling in 1931.

Visiting Hours

If you’d like to see Bruce get lit up like a, well, you know, make your way to Rockefeller Plaza between West 48th and 51st Streets and Fifth and Sixth Avenues a little before 9 pm. Expect a lot of company, many security restrictions and possible rain.

You won’t be allowed to bring umbrellas, backpacks or large bags, per the NYPD. The streets surrounding Rockefeller Center will be closed from 3 pm until after the ceremony.  Highly armed officers will be patrolling the area–only as a precaution, not because of any credible threat, according to Police Commissioner Bill Bratton.

“It’s there really to make people feel more secure. We’re asking them to be aware but to enjoy and feel safe. We’ll worry about security. They should just enjoy themselves,” he said Tuesday. Okay then.

visual approximation of Bruce

Bruce will be lit until midnight tonight, then from 5:30 a.m.-midnight daily and is expected to receive up to 750,000 visitors per day. On January 6, 2016, his lights will be doused forever at 8 pm and the process of removing him from his final perch will begin.

His remains will be donated to Habitats for Humanity. Those who benefit will never know how famous their house’s sturdy timber once was. I’d like to think that’s how Bruce would have wanted it.

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays