January 24th - Peanut Butter Day and Compliment Day

EDIT: Computer problems fixed, editing post in right now. (All these edits are occurring 1/27)

HOW I CELEBRATED

I attempted to be very complimentary to people on this day, even going so far as to write a note to the cast and crew involved with the Hilberry Theater's production of Hamlet. The compliments were all completely earned, especially those in the note (they put on what is simply the best Hamlet I've seen, and I've seen 11). To stay as true to the spirit of the holiday as possible, I only complimented sincerely.

For Peanut Butter Day, I simply had a peanut butter sandwich for lunch.

HOW OTHERS MIGHT CELEBRATE

Unless you actually are able to make your own peanut butter (a skill I currently lack, despite multiple attempts over the years), I'd say the things that I did are the easiest and purest celebrations for everyone's sake.

HISTORICAL/CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

Yet another pair of made-up holidays thrown onto the calendar willy-nilly by someone.

UNOFFICIAL THEME SONG

Unless something specifically comes to mind, I'm not going to search for stuff for holidays of this sort, sorry.

FOOTNOTES

Other Holidays and observances on this date include:
-The First Day of Sementivae in Ancient Rome
-Catholic Feast Days for St. Francis de Sales, St. Cadoc, and Our Lady of Peace

January 23rd - Bounty Day and Pie Day

My internet is working for this again, so the posts are getting edited into their rightful spots.

HOW I CELEBRATED

Bounty Day is a local custom on Pitcairn Island, so I wasn't able to get the whole festival-like atmosphere and group burning of a replica of the vessel or anything, and in fact my mom put the kibash on my burning a printed image of the boat on the driveway (my way of burning it in effigy). What I was left with then, was the book itself. William Bligh's classic firsthand account of the ship being wrested from his command is a pretty great read. I learned from the error of my ways with Winnie the Pooh, though, so I only read part of it.

Pie Day (not to be confused with Pi Day) was easy, I simply ate a piece of Apple Pie.

HOW OTHERS MIGHT CELEBRATE

I'm not going to insult you by explaining how to celebrate Pie Day, I assume anyone reading this blog is smart enough that they didn't even need the first food-related holiday to be explained to them, much less be so unobservant as to completely fail to catch the pattern of their celebrations.

Bounty Day is much more interesting. You really can't celebrate it completely properly without being on Pitcairn Island as, like I said before, it is a purely local custom. You can do a pretty decent job of observing it anyway, though. Rather than just rewording Wikipedia's entry on the holiday, however, I will just link it and let your curiosity do the rest. Also, I had a well-thought out entry for this on the 23rd, but the screwy internet connection that night made it impossible to post it and I don't feel like thinking it all out again at the moment.

HISTORICAL/CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

Pie Day is another of those made up holidays with no seeming rhyme or reason to their placement on the calendar.

Bounty Day is a national holiday on Pitcairn Island in honour of the mutiny aboard the H.M.S. Bounty and the island's founding as a Westernized culture by said mutineers. It is also the National Holiday (on June 8th) for Norfolk Island which was granted by Queen Victoria as a home to the Pitcairners who traveled there in 1858.

UNOFFICIAL THEME SONG

Though I have never seen the movie, I'd assume that the main theme to the classic 1935 film "Mutiny on the Bounty" would be appropriate. Herbert Stothart composed the music. Charles Laughton and Clark Gable starred, for those who are curious.

FOOTNOTES

-Most movie adaptations of the events of the mutiny are based off the novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall rather than Lt. Bligh's own account and are thus dramatized and somewhat historically inaccurate. The movie whose theme I've co-opted for this day's theme is no exception.

-As noted above, Norfolk Island's observance of Bounty Day is on June 8th, not January 23rd.

Other Holidays and observances on this date include:
-National Handwriting Day
-Measure Your Feet Day
-Catholic Feast Days for St. Abakuh, St. Emerentiana, and Blessed Marianne of Molokai

I'm watching you... nightly on Comedy Central

...and yet you still do nothing to acknowledge the holiday you missed despite your having an adopted bald eagle 'son'. Be a better dad to Stephen Jr.

Colbert, I will not let you let yourself down!

January 22nd - Natl. Blonde Brownie Day

HOW I CELEBRATED

I took a batch of pre-packaged chocolate chip cookie mix and instead of making cookies with it, I cooked it in a pan to make some blonde brownies, then I ate one.

HOW OTHERS MIGHT CELEBRATE

The same way, probably. I mean, this is like Strawberry Ice Cream Day, not a heck of a lot needs to be done for it!

HISTORICAL/CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

Nope, there's none of that for today, it's just another made-up one.

UNOFFICIAL THEME SONG

Nada. There is no song that I know of for today.

FOOTNOTES

-The only other things today are the Catholic Feast Days for St. Vincent, and Anastisus of Persia.

Still nothing from Stephen Colbert.

I've said all I need to say. I'm posting one of these reminders daily until I get some sort of response, though. He is better than what he let slide for that day and we all know it. It would be a disservice to him to let him get lazy and thereby decline in quality.

January 21st - Hug Day and Squirrel Appreciation Day

HOW I CELEBRATED

I saw only one clear way of celebrating Hug Day: go out in public with a 'Free Hug' sign. At first I went around at the nursing home that my Great Grandma is living in, but since that didn't amount to enough hugs for my liking as a celebration of this holiday, I walked over to the Barnes and Noble at the 7 mile location of St. John's hospital and was able to get a good dozen more hugs there, so I feel I celebrated pretty damn well.

Squirrel Appreciation Day wasn't as easy to celebrate as it would've been were it in a warmer month, but I left out some food for them today. I consider it a real shame that some genius stuck it here in the middle of winter since squirrels are one of my favourite animals, but that's out of my hands. After I post this, I think I'll try to look up a couple Squirrel Girl comic stories online. I'll probably edit links in if I'm able to find any.

HOW OTHERS MIGHT CELEBRATE

Hug everyone who will let you for Hug Day, that's the best way I can think of. Squirrel Appreciation Day is harder here in places where, like around here, it's the middle-of-freakin'-WINTER (as in freeze-your-butt-off winter), but anything to appreciate or recognize squirrels in some small way works.

HISTORICAL/CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

Hug Day is an official holiday in Discordianism, beyond that, I'm not sure. Squirrel Appreciation Day is one of those made-up holidays.

UNOFFICIAL THEME SONG

I was not able to find or think of a good theme song for either holiday.

FOOTNOTES

Other Holidays and observances today include:

-Flag Day in Quebec

-Wellington Anniversary in New Zealand

-Lady of Altagracia Day in the Dominican Republic

-Granola Bar Day

-Stonewall Jackson's Birthday

-Catholic Feast Days for St. Agnes, Fructuosus, and Meinrad of Einsiedeln

Photos

As those of you who have read my blog these past couple days now know, I'm finally able to upload photos to my computer here at home. This had been impossible for a while do to computer/printer synching problems, but now I've got that fixed and will be able to edit photos back into the blog posts that I promised would have them. From here on out there will be photos uploaded semi-regularly to the blog. I will not include them in every post, but the majority will probably have at least one.

'z'

January 20th is also Penguin Recognition Day

Since the innauguration of Obama is a historic event, I figured I'd seperate it from the other holiday I celebrated today, Penguin Recognition Day.


HOW I CELEBRATED


After leaving the public viewing of the inauguration at that church, my grandma and I then drove over to the Detroit Zoo where I attempted to interview the zookeeper in charge of the Penguin House. While waiting for her to come out, I hung around and watched the penguins for a bit, something I would've done anyway. When she finally did answer one of my knocks at the Employees Only door, I was informed that unfortunately unless the zoo's PR director approves an interview, it is a breach of the employee agreement to give one. I attempted then to contact the public relations supervisor, but to no avail. I watched March of the Penguins later on OnDemand.
















HOW OTHERS MIGHT CELEBRATE

While it will most likely be too cold for a zoo visit for most, if you can manage to stand the weather to go see Penguins at your local zoo, doing so would be recommended as a possibility. Watching a documentary like, for example, March of the Penguins, would not be a bad choice either. Simply put, doing some sort of educational activity involving penguins is what the day is for.

HISTORICAL/CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

While I cannot find clear record of exactly how today originated, a search on it shows that today is the third annual Penguin Recognition Day. I also found that this is an unofficial holiday, but no further information, unfortunately. If anyone knows more, please let me know in the comments section.

UNOFFICIAL THEME SONG
"Birth of a Penguin" from Danny Elfman's original score to the movie "Batman Returns".... is the only thing that I could think of. I'm sure there are more appropriate songs, but I could not turn up any useful results when searching "penguin songs" on Google.

FOOTNOTES

-This holiday is also known as Spheniscid Awareness Day, Penguin Day, and Natl. Penguin Day

-I typed this up on the 20th, and it was post-dated to have the publishing data say that that is when it was posted, but due to a mistake on my part (I forgot to click the 'publish' icon before leaving to hang out at a local coffee house), it was not actually published until the 21st.

Other Holidays and observances on this date include:
-Cheese Day
-Basketball Day
-Catholic Feast Days for Abadios, St. Sebastian, St. Fabian, and Euthymius the Great

January 20th - Inauguration Day of Barack H. Obama

I know it's really early in the day for you folks to be getting a new actual blog post from me, but I'm freshly home from celebrating both Obama's inauguration and a second holiday which will get its own post (of the regular sort) later today.

Today is a historic date as none of the news outlets will let anyone forget. Today we end the eight-year horror that was former-President George W. Bush's run of the White House, and have someone competent finally in the Oval Office.

HOW I CELEBRATED

My initial plans for today were simply to watch the inauguration here at home and then blog about it. That plan pleasantly changed this morning as I was asked by my grandma if I would like to join her in heading up to a church she attends services at to watch the inauguration there with a whole crowd of others, and I simply could not pass up that opportunity to share in the joy of welcoming our new President to his post.

We got up there at about 11:15 with a lunch we'd picked up at KFC, and after eating in the dining room area, I moved into the main hall to watch the ceremony as projected on two large screens.

As the cameras followed Obama walking down the hall of the Capital Bulding on his way to the crowds and the ceremony itself, the room burst into spontaneous applause which I shared in. The excitement in the room was almost tangible as various performances and speeches took place with more cheers and applause popping up occasionally, but for the most part, up until Obama finally took the Oath of Office, the main feelings in the room were anticipation and the aforementioned excitement bubbled just beneath the surface.

Joe Biden then took the Vice Presidential Oath of Office, officially succeeding Dick Cheney at exactly 11:58 a.m. Eastern Time. At noon, the official White House website changed over from George W. Bush as president to Barack H. Obama, preceding our new president's official swearing-in by five minutes.

Following that, a new John Williams piece, composed specifically for this event entitled "Air and Simple Gifts" based around the "Shaker Hymn" melody was premiered by Itzhak Perlman, Yo Yo Ma, Gabriela Montero, and Anthony McGill.

The tension and excitement broke at 12:05 exactly as Barack Hussein Obama was officially sworn-in as the 44th President of the United States of America immediately following his taking the Oath of Office. The entire room immediately burst into a standing ovation, cheers erupting across the room and many tears shed in pure joy. It was a moment I don't think I'll ever forget.

No one was able to maintain their composure throughout the Inaugural Address with cheers and applause bursting up and dying down spontaneously throughout. A third standing ovation, this one lasting a good five minutes followed (the first took place after Biden). Shortly after that I left, but mostly because the room was heated to an uncomfortable level for me.

HOW OTHERS CELEBRATED

All across the country, and even numerous places around the world as evidenced by periodic shots of folks gathered in various places including London, Kenya, and even a classroom filled with young children in Jakarta, Indonesia where it was almost midnight, people gathered in groups to watch today's historic ceremony. I do not feel any more needs to be said about the impact that the change-of-power had on people's spirits worldwide.

If, by odd chance, you happened to miss the procedings due to work, sleep, or whathaveyou, I have found videos on YouTube of much of the ceremony which I will share with you embedded here in approximate chronological order for your viewing pleasure.

I could not find videos of the announcement and seating of the various attendees of today's ceremonies, so we'll start with Senator Dianne Feinstein's opening remarks:

Following that came the Inaugural Prayer led by controversial pastor Rick Warren:

Next was Aretha Franklin's performance of "My Country 'tis of Thee":

Joe Biden then took the Vice Presidential Oath of Office:

The performance of "Air and Simple Gifts":

Brack Obama then finally took the Oath of Office and was sworn-in as President:

Following that was the Inaugural Address. This was split into two videos, both of which follow:

Poet Elizabeth Alexander then read her poem "Song for the Day":

The ceremony ended with a Benediction from Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowry following which the Presidential party departed from the platform:

After a break for lunch, Obama had his official signing-in at the Oval Office. I apologize for the video's sound being basically inaudible, but it's the only video I could find of it:

HISTORICAL/CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

I do not feel that I need to explain to you the fact that the ceremony itself WAS a historic event.

OFFICIAL THEME SONGS

"Hail to the Chief" composed by Sir Walter Scott is the official theme music for the inauguration of the President of the United States and "Hail, Columbia" by Philip Phile is for the VP.

Today's ceremony also had its own specific official theme in the aforementioned John Williams piece.

As an additional fourth piece, and an UNofficial theme for today, I offer up our friend, Jonathan Coulton's song "The Presidents" as updated this past Saturday at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, California.

FOOTNOTES

-"Hail, Columbia" was the unofficial National Anthem of the U.S. until 1831 saw "The Star Spangled Banner" become our official one.

-I consider Obama to be the 43rd President not the 44th as the 22nd and 24th in the official count were both Grover Cleveland. Technically, in my opinion, rather than being two seperate presidents, I count Cleveland simply as the 22nd, with two non-consecutive terms.

-EDIT: Obama took the Oath of Office over again on the afternoon of the following day due to the flub during it, just in case.

-The regular list of holidays and observances will sit in the footnotes section of today's other official holiday post which will come later today.

The reason I'm not letting up on Stephen Colbert.

As those of you out there who read this thing have undoubtably noticed, I am being pretty hard on Stephen Colbert for having not celebrated Bald Eagle Day on the 14th. The reason for this is, as a fan of Mr. Colbert, I know that he is better than that. His persona on the show is at once brilliant and hilarious and a lot of research goes into the many random jokes and references that appear on his show throughout the week. It is the fact of the level of quality that he invariably shows that will not let me conscionably allow this oversight on his part to slide. The fact that his character is built to be overly and overtly patriotic as well as the honor of having a bald eagle "son" named Stephen, Jr. in his honour that it seems out of the question that one should allow him to miss the (admittedly obscure) holiday of Bald Eagle Day.

Colbert, I'm watching you (nightly, on Comedy Central). I'm watching you like an eagle. Like a bald eagle. You'd better take note and admit the oversight, or I'll hound you on my blog until you do.

'z'

January 19th - Martin Luther King Jr. Day

HOW I CELEBRATED

I'm glad I'm out of high school, though if I was, it would have been an easier way to celebrate today to simply have been given the day off. That was not the case, however, so instead I watched a special on the History Channel as well as a video on YouTube of the famous "I Have a Dream" speech from August 28, 1963. That video will be embedded in the H/CS section of the blog, by the way. Also, while it would've been easier to celebrate simply as a school/bank holiday, it would not have been the better way.

HOW OTHERS MIGHT CELEBRATE

While it is a school/bank holidays in many areas across the United States (though not everywhere), I would hope that one would celebrate the life of MLK in at least some small way on this holiday. President-Elect Barack Obama also said that the day should in King's honour be recognised as a Day of Service to help improve our great nation, and I fully agree.

HISTORICAL/CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

I feel that the video speaks for itself and the greatness of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. better than I ever could. Including a transcript of the speech directly in the article would make it too long in my opinion (I learned my lesson from both Binary Day and Natl. Sci-Fi Day on what not to do with formatting and quotations), I think it deserves a link. Though Stephen Colbert still has yet to acknowledge his shameful snubbing of Bald Eagle Day (I'm not going to let him off the hook for that in the near future), I would feel remiss if I were not to also include a link to his loving parody/tribute of King's famous speech with his own "I Have a Dreamsicle".

UNOFFICIAL THEME SONG

While U2's music is really hit-or-miss with me, their song "MLK" off Rattle and Hum is a tasteful tribute to the late Reverend King with lyrics that are at once both mournful and filled with hope. As much as Bono can be a pompously arrogant prick, he can write a fantastic song from time to time.

FOOTNOTES

-This holiday was originally recognized on King's birthday (January 15th) but was moved at some point to the third monday of the month for reasons that are unknown to me.

-I briefly considered celebrating Popcorn Day as well, but felt that it would be disrespectful to the memory of Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. to do so.

-Likewise I would have loved to have been able to celebrate Archery Day but a combination of respect for Dr. King and the complete lack of an archery range (that I'm aware of) in the area prevented this.

Other holidays and observances on this date include:

-Edgar Allen Poe's Birthday

-Confederate Heroes Day in Texas

-Feast of Sultán in the Bahá'í Faith

-Kappa Alpha Order Convivium (Founders Day)

-Epiphany in Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Catholicism

-Popcorn Day (or Natl. Popcorn Day, sources vary on which the title is)

-Archery Day

-Catholic Feast Days for Henry of Uppsala, St. Mark of Ephesus, Wolfstan (Bishop of Worcester), and Maris, Martha, Abachum & Audifax

January 18th - Winnie the Pooh Day, Jazz Day, and Pat Pineapple Day

HOW I CELEBRATED

For Winnie the Pooh Day, which is technically incorrectly titled, as though the first book was called "Winnie the Pooh", the text has Christopher Robin correcting the narrator and saying it's not Winnie THE Pooh, it's Winnie THER Pooh. No explanation is given on what 'ther' means, though. Anyway, for Winnie the Pooh Day, I celebrated in what was probably the most exhausting way for any of the holidays so far, I actually read an omnibus hardcover edition of the original Pooh stories by A.A. Milne cover to cover. That's about 344 pages of Pooh, for those who don't know. Great stories, mind you, but I really shouldn't have decided to read the whole damn thing in one day. My baby sister also watched a few Winnie the Pooh movies this morning as I started my reading in the same room. I wish that I could also say that I did something related to the production of Winnie the Pooh that local theater group the Eastpointe Players is putting on, but sadly I didn't make cast when I auditioned for it.

For much of the time spent reading, and much of the day in general whether reading or not, I celebrated Jazz Day as well. As is probably self-evident, that means that I have had various types of jazz music on all day, from ragtime, to fusion, to bebop, to other sub-genres I'm not sure of the name of. A slight selection of some of the bands/artists included in this musical binge include Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Steely Dan, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Frank Sinatra (though Ol' Blue Eyes tended to bounce between pop and jazz, a lot of his stuff still counts in my opinion).


Today's third holiday was the Discordian celebration Pat Pineapple Day. This had a much simpler expression on my part than the others, I just had some pineapple pieces with breakfast.

HOW OTHERS MIGHT CELEBRATE

Hopefully for Winnie the Pooh Day, no one reading this blog will go as far overboard as I did. Simply sharing one or two of the stories as a family or reading them on your own should suffice. Watching one of the Disney features (preferrably an old one, but that's your choice, not mine) would be a good option as well.

Jazz Day is a pretty simple one as well. In fact, all three of today's are. Any celebration of jazz music, be it performance or listening (or a mix of the two) is perfect.


Pat Pineapple Day's celebrations as far as I was informed when I discovered it are simply to consume or do something made from, or based off, pineapples.


HISTORICAL/CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

After first being published in 1926, the children's book "Winnie-the-Pooh" by A.A. Milne and along with its sequel "The House at Pooh Corner" from 1928, it has spawned a multi-billion dollar line of animated movies, cartoon series', etc. after the rights were purchased by the Walt Disney corporation (first in 1966 for the short "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree" and countless times afterward), as well as the original stories charming parents and children alike worldwide. At some unknown point, Milne's birthday became officially recognized as Winnie the Pooh Day in honour of his most famous creation.

I have found no background on why today is Jazz Day, so I am under the assumption that it's just another one of those made up holidays.

Pat Pineapple Day is a Discordian holiday. Not being in on the texts of whatever the Discordian holy book is called, and thus unable to find it online, I am unaware of this day's significance. I do know, however, that a person(?) in their belief system was called Pat Pineapple and that's who this day is named for.

UNOFFICIAL THEME SONG

For Winnie the Pooh Day I'm torn between the song "Winnie the Pooh" written by the Sherman Brothers and at least excerpted in some form in every single animated feature I've seen about him and "House at Pooh Corner" by Loggins and Messina.
Jazz Day, being named for a style of music is obviously unable to have a single theme as it is beyond subjective as to what the ultimate piece of music in said style is, though the most performed would be "In the Mood" popularized by the Glenn Miller Orchestra, though my personal tastes are pressuring me to say the entirety of "A Love Supreme" by John Coltrane. This is basically a "pick your own" day, so whatever jazz piece you like best is your pick.

FOOTNOTES

-There are twenty official Winnie the Pooh stories at this date, though the third official book is slated to be published this October 6th. These are not lost stories written by A.A. Milne, but rather a completely new collection.

-I'm kicking myself for skipping Daniel Webster's Birthday. I could easily have celebrated by telling the story usually referred to as 'The Devil and Daniel Webster' at Trixie's Poetry Night... oh well.

Other Holidays and observances on this date include:
-First day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
-Thesaurus Day
-Paryaya Day at Udupi (falls on even-numbered years, as such it did not occur today)
-Royal Thai Armed Forces Day
-Feast of the Cross (Eastern Orthodox Catholicism)
-Feast of the Confession of St. Peter (Eastern Orthodox, Angelican, and Lutheran)
-Daniel Webster's Birthday
-Catholic Feast Days for St. Athanasius (Eastern Orthodox), St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Margaret of Hungary, St. Prisca, and St. Volusianus