Posts

National Simplicity Day

national simplicity dayJuly 12, 2025, is the 208th anniversary of author and consummate liar Henry David Thoreau’s birth. His name is held in high regard, and his work evokes a fondness and nostalgia in readers and inspirational-quote-mongers.

Thoreau’s account of his retreat into nature and the wisdom it brought him is largely fictional. At Worldwide Weird Holidays, we’re okay with that. We ask only that publishers stop classifying this stuff as memoir. Call it a novel.

Then maybe we can all stop trying to live up to an impossible standard that he didn’t even try to reach. Any pompous ass can say profound things when his mom’s on the way over to cook dinner.

*****

National Simplicity Day honors the birthday, on July 12, 1817, of Henry David Thoreau, author, ersatz ascetic, armchair philosopher, and navel-gazing misanthrope.

Thoreau famously went to live in a cabin in the woods, the better to ponder life without the inconvenience of other people and the irritations of everyday, well, life.

In Walden, or, Life in the Woods, he wrote, “I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beechtree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.”

Thoreau certainly could turn a phrase; many of them clog the arteries of inspirational sites and satisfy the sweet tooth of quote-mongers who reverently offer them up on posters, mousepads, and coffee mugs.

He neglected to mention that the area was always bustling with people. A commuter train passed nearby. He hosted parties. He lived a twenty-minute walk from his parents’ house and made the trip several times a week to enjoy his mother’s cooking.

The man who advised his readers to eat only one meal a day to avoid indulging base appetites was visited by his mother and sisters at least once a week to bring him food, tidy up the cabin, and clean his laundry.

Let’s be clear. We don’t fault the man for entertaining, eating well, and having the women in his family help him. The problem is that he wrote as if he were roughing it in the middle of nowhere, with no one but the trees and forest creatures for company. He then used that fictitious narrative to promote an ideology he never practiced.

If Thoreau couldn’t or wouldn’t “unplug” in the 1850s, how can we expect his philosophy to succeed for us today? And who says we should even try? After all, the Unabomber actually lived in a cabin by himself for many years, and his manifesto included instructions for living off the grid. Upon further investigation, we found that he also received support from his family.

Exhortations to simplify one’s life can be helpful, but they often mask disdain and smug superiority. Thoreau reminds us of the intrepid explorer in a documentary, ostensibly forging a path that was trodden moments before by the cameraman walking backward in front of him.

Have a happy National Simplicity Day! But if you can’t keep it simple, don’t worry – you’re in good company.

Share this:

July 11 is Cheer Up the Lonely Day

cheer up the lonely day

So close. Find the correct quote below, courtesy of quoteinvestigator.com.

Today is Cheer Up the Lonely Day, created by Francis Pesek of Detroit, Michigan. His daughter L.J. Pesek described him as “a quiet, kind, wonderful man who had a heart of gold.”

“He got the idea as a way of promoting kindness toward others who were lonely or forgotten as shut-ins or in nursing homes with no relatives or friends to look in on them.” She said he chose July 11 because it was his birthday.

What is the definition of the word lonely?
ˈlōnlē/ adjective
  1. sad because one has no friends or company.
    “lonely old people whose families do not care for them”
    • without companions; solitary.
      “passing long lonely hours looking onto the street”
    • (of a place) unfrequented and remote.
      “a lonely stretch of country lane”

The elderly can become isolated as their circles of friends grow smaller due to the illness and death of their contemporaries. They may be relocated to facilities at the fringes of their communities. Loss of physical mobility makes it a struggle to visit others; losing autonomy after lives spent caring for themselves and others takes a psychological toll that can result in depression.

Mark Twain once wrote, “The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up.” There’s no denying that time spent face-to-face with loved ones, telling them how much they mean to us, does our hearts good. We also know what it’s like to be lonely. It can happen in the middle of a crowd. It only takes a moment to be kind to a stranger today.

Have a happy Cheer Up the Lonely Day and remember how good it feels. That way, we can keep it going tomorrow and every day after that.

Share this:

July 10 is Clerihew Day

clerihew day

Edmund Clerihew Bentley

Today is Clerihew Day, a holiday that celebrates the birthday of British author and journalist Edmund Clerihew Bentley (July 10, 1875 – March 30, 1956), who invented the purposefully silly type of rhyming verse that bears his middle name.

A clerihew consists of four lines in AA, BB rhyming couplets. (The first and second lines rhyme with each other; the third rhymes with the fourth.) According to legend, Bentley constructed the first clerihew as a schoolboy, regarding Sir Humphry Davy, a British chemist who discovered several chemical elements.

Sir Humphry Davy
Abominated gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered Sodium.

To which we would like to add:

We’re not sure why Davy
couldn’t stomach gravy.
Was it his fault?
Did he add too much salt?

One of our favorite clerihews comes from X.J. Kennedy’s Famous Poems Abbreviated:

Once upon a midnight dreary,
Blue and lonesome, missed my dearie.
Would I find her? Any hope?
Quoth the raven six times, “Nope.”

Here’s our challenge to you, dear reader:

Why not compose a clerihew?
If you enjoy it, write a few.
Soon you will be called a poet
But none will say you didn’t know it.

Have a happy Clerihew Day!

Share this:

Leap Year Only Flitch Day

July 9, 2025: Flitch Day awards a side of bacon to a couple still in love after a year and a day of marriage. It is only celebrated every leap year, so the next one will take place in 2028. Here’s the post for last year, which was a momentous occasion.

flitch day

Flitch bearers, 2016

July 9, 2024: Today is Flitch Day, a custom dating back to 1104 in a village in Essex, England.

First, a little background is in order. A flitch is half a pig, cut lengthwise, salted and cured, also known as a full side of bacon. The story goes that a year and a day after their nuptials, Lord Reginald Fitzwater and his wife disguised themselves as peasants and traveled to the local monastery to beg blessings for their happy marriage.

The monk who received them was so impressed by their devotion that he gave them a flitch. In what could be called the first episode of Undercover Boss, Lord Fitzwater revealed his identity and promised his land to the monastery. He had one condition: the monks must award a flitch to any couple who could prove their love after a year and a day. (Who better to judge marital bliss than men who’ve taken a vow of chastity?)

The word of the tradition, known as the Dunmow Flitch Trials, spread. Author William Langland referred to it in his 1362 book, The Vision of Piers Plowman. In the early 15th century, Geoffrey Chaucer alluded to it in The Canterbury Tales.

Records weren’t kept until 1445, when Richard Wright of Norwich was victorious, according to documents preserved in the British Museum. One hundred years later, King Henry VIII closed the monasteries, but the trials endured, overseen by the current Lord of the Manor.

In 1832, George Wade, Steward of Little Dunmow, declared the contest “an idle custom bringing people of indifferent character into the neighborhood.” The Dunmow Flitch Trials declined in popularity and eventually lapsed entirely.

The custom was revived following the success of Harrison Ainsworth’s novel, The Flitch or The Custom of Dunmow, published in 1854. In it, he told the tale of a man so desperate to win the flitch that he married a succession of wives to find his perfect match.

Dunmow Flitch Trial winners, 2024

The event has been held in Great Dunmow ever since. After World War II, it was decided that the trials would only take place in leap years. Luckily, 2024 is such a year. This year’s celebration is especially important because Emma Hynds and Emma D’Costa, who have been married for under two years, have become the first same-sex couple to win the flitch. The rest of us have four more years to perfect our marriages. Or we could just buy a side of bacon and call it a day.

Did the phrase “bring home the bacon” originate with this contest? Though many believe so, we may never be certain. By the way, losers aren’t sent home empty-handed. They receive a consolation prize of gammon, the hind leg of a pig. The one thing we know for sure is that this is no fun for the pigs.

Happy Flitch Day!