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Chaos Never Dies Day

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chaos never dies dayToday is Chaos Never Dies Day. At least, I think it is. When I first wrote about this unofficial holiday a decade ago, I had no idea I’d get tangled up in that chaos thanks to the Internet and a Florida man’s radio talk show. (More on that later.)

Why this holiday? Since no one has claimed responsibility for creating it, there’s no one to ask. Although a current AI search traces the first mention to 2016, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine still has a snapshot of my post about it from November 2015, and I can tell you I didn’t make it up—unless I traveled through time to give myself the idea.

I’m reminded of debates over whether Kyle Reese could hop in a time machine and sleep with Sarah Connor, thereby fathering the person who would one day send him back. What? That paradox in The Terminator still gives me a headache, so I’m just going to have to let Skynet win this one. Please don’t judge me.

Why today? November 9th might have been chosen because it coincides with the Northeast blackout of 1965. Or the day in 1888 when the last-known victim of Jack the Ripper was found. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, why not both?

What is chaos? I’m reminded of  Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s response when asked to describe obscenity. He couldn’t define it, he said, “but I know it when I see it.”  Chaos can be equally hard to explain, at least for me, depending on myriad factors such as timing, location, and circumstances.

In Greek mythology, Chaos was the first primeval god to come into existence at the creation of the universe. Her name comes from the Latin khaos, meaning  “gap” or the space between heaven and earth.

Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics that describes the behavior of non-linear systems and attempts to find underlying order in what appear to be random events or data.

Here are a few quotes illustrating different views of chaos.

We live in a rainbow of chaos. – Paul Cezanne
Freedom is just chaos, with better lighting. – Alan Dean Foster
Chaos is the score upon which reality is written. –  Henry Miller
I like order. It allows me to have chaos in my head. – Dwight Yoakum

Here’s the dictionary definition.

Chaos
noun
1. A state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or order.
2. Any confused, disorderly mass: a chaos of meaningless phrases.
3. The infinity of space or formless matter supposed to have preceded the existence of the ordered universe.
4. The personification of this in any of several ancient Greek myths.
5. Obsolete. A chasm or abyss.

And here comes my role in the story.

Chaos, 2017

On November 8, 2017, I was invited to speak about Chaos Never Dies Day on a radio show. With less than 24 hours’ notice, I scrambled to cram the online equivalent of Chaos Theory for Dummies to prepare.

The show’s booker told me I’d also be asked to explain how I came to write about weird holidays and talk about any notable ones taking place before the end of the year. I gathered information on two of the wackiest: Start Your Own Country Day and Tió de Nadal, which involves a Christmas log that craps out presents when beaten with a stick.

He didn’t tell me the show’s theme was “Are we Stuck in a Bad News Hell?” or that the guests before me would be talking about parenting in the wake of a mass shooting in Texas.

The Michael S Robinson Show banner

When Michael S. Robinson introduced me, I described the beauty of the order hidden within what we perceive as chaos, using the example of football, which can’t be predicted in strictly linear terms by the sum of the players’ and team’s rankings, because of variables like team chemistry, whether it’s a home or away game, the quarterback’s attitude, etc. Since I’m confident you’ll never hear the interview, I’m going to say it was brilliant.

But Mr. Robinson wanted to talk about everyday chaos. How did I try so hard yet end up woefully unprepared? I didn’t just strike out. I left my bat in the dugout and brought a cello to the plate. I’d like to credit chaos in some artful way by suggesting it created a perfect trajectory I can’t identify. That’s hogwash, of course—or is it? (It is.)

In my defense, I’d never heard the radio show before, and in my rush to speak knowledgeably about the theory behind the holiday and bring the funny about two other wacky holidays, I didn’t take the time to check it out. I was never asked about any of that.

And during the call, I had feedback blasting my words back at me, making it almost impossible to speak normally. There’s nothing worse than hearing your own voice faltering in near-real time. Again, chaos. It’s probably just as well they spelled my name Kathlene Zaya.

$99,000 Answer The Honeymooners Ralph KramdenAll this reminds me of the $99,000 Answer, an episode of The Honeymooners in which Ralph Kramden prepares to go on a game show where he’ll be required to identify songs by the first few bars.

He rents a piano and has Ed Norton play musical selections all week to prepare for the event. Ed always warms up by playing the first few bars of “Swanee River,” which never fails to annoy Ralph.

The night of the show, the first tune played is “Swanee River,” which he can’t name. He loses despite all his preparation. I laughed but felt bad for Ralph, perpetual loser.

It also reminds me of the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry David did something stupid or thoughtless because he misunderstood the context of a situation, or maybe because he was a jerk. (In other words, every episode.)

Fictional chaos theorist Ian Malcolm said in Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way.” So do laughs, but not always the ones you want or on the schedule you’d prefer.

Chaos, Now

Unsurprisingly, I’ve never been asked to return to Mr. Robinson’s show. Perhaps my invitation got lost in the (e)mail. There’s certainly much to discuss: Trump’s hair—pure chaos!—or the discovery that the Mayans invented television. (In honor of today’s holiday and to wash away the image of Trump, please click on that last link for the whacked-out philosophical stylings of a character in one of my favorite movies, Repo Man. Better yet, watch it.)

Also, in the first update I wrote in 2017, I misidentified fictional character Ian Malcolm as David Malcom. I regret the error and know that my use of flawed web research has introduced yet another tiny bit of chaos to the Internet. Whether I created this holiday or not, I guess you could say I’m doing my part.

Whether you choose to fight chaos today or welcome it with open arms, have a wonderful Chaos Never Dies Day! See you next year.

National Nachos Day

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Today is National Nachos Day and should not be confused with International Day of the Nacho (October 21) or with the International Nacho Festival (October 13-15). To be honest, we’re a bit confused ourselves. To get to the bottom of this delicious mystery, let’s dig in (sorry).

Although we’re not sure why it’s celebrated on November 6th, the origin of National Nachos Day is this: In 1943,  Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya inadvertently invented nachos at a restaurant in Piedras Negras, Mexico. (To pinpoint the exact date it happened would strain credulity, wouldn’t it?)

A group of officers’ wives whose husbands were stationed in Fort Duncan Airbase in Texas crossed the border to have dinner at the famed Victory Club. The women were more than fashionably late: the restaurant had closed, and the cook had gone home. The ladies were hungry.

Anaya’s son related the legend in an interview in the Sun Sentinel.

“My father was maître d’ and he said ‘Let me go quick and fix something for you.’ He went into the kitchen, picked up tostadas, grated some cheese on them – Wisconsin cheese, the round one – and put them under the Salamander [a broiling unit that quickly browns the top of foods]. He pulled them out after a couple minutes, all melted, and put on a slice of jalapeno.”

Whether Mamie Finan, one of the wives, or Anaya himself christened the dish Nacho’s Especiales is a matter of debate among snack historians. This much is certain: the dish was a hit. Somewhere along the way, the name was shortened to nachos. Anaya’s original recipe appeared in St. Anne’s Cookbook in 1954.

national nachos day

Ignacio Anaya went on to work at the Moderno Restaurant in Piedras Negras, where his original recipe is still used. He later opened his own establishment, appropriately named Nacho’s Restaurant, also in Piedras Negras.

By 1960, when he sought to claim ownership of the nacho, it had already been around for seventeen years and was in the public domain. To honor Anaya’s creation, Piedras Negras hosts the International Nacho Festival every year.

The snack’s popularity grew in 1976 when businessman Frank Liberto began selling a modified version at sporting events in Arlington Stadium, home of the Texas Rangers. That first year, sales totaled $800,000.

Liberto’s secret? He altered one ingredient, creating a pourable processed cheese product with a long shelf life that didn’t need to be heated. We can’t tell you the formula’s secret, proprietary ingredients; just that, by the Food and Drug Administration’s standards, it legally can’t be called cheese. But that’s never stopped anyone from tucking into a bowl of nachos. Better snacking through modern chemistry, right?

In 1978, the treat became available at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium, where iconic sports announcer Howard Cosell was covering Monday Night Football with Don Meredith and Frank Gifford. At some point, a plate of nachos was brought up to the booth.

national nachos day nachos

The broadcasters needed to fill some dead airtime, so Cosell decided to riff on the snack’s name. “‘They brought us this new snack—what do they call them? knock-o’s or nachos?’” recalls Liberto. “He started using the word ‘nachos’ in the description of plays: ‘Did you see that run? That was a nacho run!’”

Cosell and others used the word for weeks afterward, helping Liberto’s nachos branch out from their Texas birthplace. Ignacio Anaya invented the original nacho. Frank Liberto modernized them, turning them into a concession snack and a profit machine.

Ignacio Anaya died in 1975. A bronze plaque erected in Piedras Negras honors his memory and October 21 was declared the International Day of the Nacho. Why was that date chosen? Was it his birthday? The date he died? We don’t know.

So there you have it, folks. Hungry yet?

National Author’s Day

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National Authors' DayToday is National Author’s Day. In 1928, teacher Nellie Verne Burt McPherson suggested the creation of a holiday dedicated to American authors at a meeting of the Bement, Illinois, Women’s Club.

McPherson was inspired by an experience she’d had more than a decade earlier while lying in a hospital recuperating from an illness. She’d written a fan letter to Irving Bacheller after reading his story, Eben Holden’s Last Day A’Fishin.

She was thrilled when the author responded by sending her an autographed copy of another one of his stories. She remembered his kindness when she pioneered the observance.

As president of the club, she submitted her idea to the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. It was celebrated unofficially for many years. In 1949, the United States Department of Commerce made it an official holiday, but it remained largely unknown for almost 20 years.

After McPherson’s death in 1968, her granddaughter, Sue Cole, began promoting the celebration of National Author’s Day. She urged readers to write to American authors to “brighten up the sometimes lonely business of being a writer.” Other ways to celebrate include re-reading a classic, picking up a current title, or writing reviews for your favorite books and authors on Goodreads or Amazon.  

Happy National Author’s Day!

National Magic Day

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Everybody knows today is Halloween. But it’s also National Magic Day, when members of the Society of American Magicians (SAM) and many other groups celebrate by offering free magic performances for kids, the ill, the elderly, and shut-ins.

Why is this holiday celebrated today? In 1938, a Chicago member of SAM proposed a holiday to honor Harry Houdini. October 31st was declared National Magic Day in memory of the day Houdini died.

national magic day houdini in chains

Houdini set the standard for a type of performance known as Escape Or Die. There are at least three possible ways for a magician to risk his life in the event of failure.  These are death by drowning, as in the water escapes Houdini pioneered; death by suffocation, as in escapes from airtight enclosures such as coffins; and death by falling (also originated by Houdini), in a straitjacket escape while hanging from high above the earth, where falling meant certain death.

In 1915, at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, Houdini was chained in a locked box weighted down with 500 pounds of iron and dropped into the bay. He escaped. To celebrate the fair’s centennial, the Palace of Fine Arts, the only building to remain from the exposition, constructed an “escape room” that challenged all who entered to escape within 80 minutes.

On September 30, 1926, in Worcester, MA, he performed the first public test of an airtight coffin, seeking to prove there were no secret tubes siphoning air to him or other trickery. The Daily Telegram reported that Houdini would be sealed for one hour “in the coffin in which he will be buried when he dies.”

national magic day houdini coffin test

The test went off without a hitch. What no one knew then was that it would become Houdini’s casket only one month later, after his death on Halloween 1926.

Houdini wasn’t killed by a feat gone wrong; he died of diffuse peritonitis due to acute appendicitis, widely believed to have been caused by a punch to his abdomen on the morning of October 22, 1926. A young man who may have been a college student, an amateur boxer, or both decided to test Houdini’s boast that he could withstand any blow. The magician later claimed he was injured only because he wasn’t given time to prepare by tensing his abdominal muscles.

Research shows it’s unlikely that a punch could directly rupture an appendix, even one that’s already inflamed. In any case, Houdini mistakenly assumed the pain he suffered afterward was due only to the punch, leading him to refuse medical treatment for what could have been a routine case of appendicitis.

Instead, he continued to perform for two more days until, overwhelmed by pain, he agreed to be hospitalized. The surgeon who removed his appendix found it had burst, spreading peritonitis throughout Houdini’s body. The odds were against him in the days before antibiotics, but he held on and endured another surgery, seeming to rally before finally slipping away on October 31st at the age of 52.

Ten years later, his wife Bess held what she called The Final Houdini Séance on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel. Supposedly, she had a compact with her late husband to contact her within ten years. There’s nothing to substantiate that. It appears that Bess wanted the subject of communicating with Harry to be closed. After her husband did not reappear,  she wrote:

Since the failure of the ten-year test, it is my opinion that all concerned have struck a mighty worldwide blow at superstition.

There is a recording of the séance or, more likely, a theatrical reading of the transcript, which was released as an album. On it, Bess says, “It is finished.”

She couldn’t have been more wrong. The “final” séance spawned dozens of Halloween Houdini séances that continue to this day. Some bill themselves as “official.” As Houdini himself would tell you, that’s impossible. One thing’s for sure: If séances work, then Mr. Houdini’s phone is ringing off the hook right about now.

*****

P.S. Houdini was well known for his hostility to the Spiritualism movement so popular in his day and attempted to discredit so-called mediums at every turn. (He had tried to contact his dead brother and father as a young man and was embittered by the experience.)

So it seems a bit odd that he befriended Arthur Conan Doyle, who was a fervent believer in psychic phenomena. Each sought to convert the other until Doyle’s wife Jean offered to contact Houdini’s mother shortly after her death.

He agreed, wanting to believe it was possible.  During the séance, Jean went into a trance while holding a pencil and jotted a message from Houdini’s mother through a method known as “automatic writing.” Houdini took the note, saying nothing about the fact that his mother had never learned to read or write and, in any case, spoke no English.

He went public soon after, saying that he didn’t believe the Doyles were being intentionally deceitful. They were simply gullible. Doyle responded by saying the language of the spirit is universal. Their friendship never recovered.

Read more about Houdini’s amazing exploits. Honor his skepticism of mediums and con artists, while experiencing the childlike wonder of a magic show. Have a happy National Magic Day!