Twitterpated

• 08:06 Had a dream about being a teacher at my old school, and screwing up when all I had to do was introduce myself. #
• 11:48 In another dream, I watched some animated movie, and apparently fell asleep during part of it. Then I complained about movie theaters. #
• 11:54 Tonight is Walpurgis Night. Sadly, I don't think it has anything to do with walruses. #
• 14:40 Today is Arbor Day. Too bad the ardor of our arboreality is an adventure we have spurned. #
• 14:48 @d_whiteplume I don't really do audio books. Maybe I should, but I can't shake the idea I'm not getting the full experience. #
• 14:51 @TheRealTavie A drowned one? #
• 14:54 @huggythuggy But we can still read selections from Oprah's Book Club while driving, right? #
• 16:43 Why are there so many cranberry-flavored sodas? It doesn't taste that good! #
• 16:47 RT @douggpound Pat Robertson-"This latest oil spill was brought upon by God to punish the large gay oyster community in the Gulf of Mexico." #
• 16:51 How come some Muslim dude's ignorant comment inspired Boobquake, but Pat Robertson's never inspire a Gayquake? #
• 20:34 Crap, forgot to take my medicine today. I've managed to get through almost all of the workday without suffering from depression, fortunately #
• 20:41 @twobitme I like Robyn, but he seems to record every song he ever thinks of, so there are bound to be some clunkers. #
• 20:47 What if I give you my love, but NOT my revenge, and we write a MEDIOCRE romance? #meetingladygagahalfway #

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Look Out Upon the Myriad Arbor

Today is both Arbor Day and Walpurgis Night, two holidays to which I've never put a whole lot of thought. Frankly, I'm not quite sure why, if we already had Arbor Day, we really needed Earth Day, especially in the same month. Did the creators of Earth Day think Arbor Day had gotten too commercial? I know I'm sick of how you can't walk into a store at this time of year without finding racks of Arbor Day cards, green and brown M&M's, and novelty oak trees that play Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" when you clap your hands. And what about that annoyingly commercial mascot, Millie the Lonely Maple, the source of a song by Johnny Marks and a Rankin-Bass stop-motion special? Anyway, I hope you planted a tree today, because I didn't.


As for Walpurgis Night, it's actually named after St. Walpurga, the eighth-century English missionary to what is now Germany. It really sounds, however, like it should be some kind of creature that's part walrus and part something else. Maybe a cross between a walrus, a cat, and a jellyfish. If I knew how to draw, maybe I'd come up with my own depiction of this monstrosity, but I don't. Maybe one of my fans could do it, if I had fans. Anyway, in Germany, it's regarded as the night when witches meet for their crazy celebrations on the mountain known as Brocken or Blocksberg. I don't think you see as much of that here. America has a reputation of being unfriendly to witches, what with the stories of witches being burned alive by the Puritans in Salem. This, however, is entirely untrue. The Puritans actually HANGED witches, which is an important distinction. Hanging leaves the body intact and able to be resurrected with a spell like Life 3 from Final Fantasy VI. And really, what self-respecting magic-worker WOULDN'T take such a precaution before going to the gallows? The only problem was the people they were hanging WEREN'T witches, but simply unpopular people. Perhaps witch hunts were yet another case of the popular kids attacking the nerds. You know, the eggheads who thought medicine was more effective than a Hail Mary for curing disease.


Since it's past midnight, I guess that means it's technically May Day, which was widely regarded as the first day of summer before everyone became sticklers for the solstice. I'll be sure to celebrate by dancing around the maypole and watching that Rankin-Bass classic, Bella, the Beltane Bellbird.

Anyone who can learn to say "hands up" can learn to think like Robin Hood

I'd been meaning to do a Robin Hood post for a little while now, and it turns out that today is particularly appropriate, as he was a part of medieval English May Day celebrations. Specifically, the Robin Hood games were plays relating to the famous outlaw. Robin is known as the bandit with a social conscience, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. The movie and television industries has mined the crap out of the Robin Hood legends, from silent films through Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn, moving on to British television series, Disney's anthropomorphic animals, and Mel Brooks's nineties attempt to recapture his glory days. And I'm sure you all know that there's a new Robin Hood movie coming out starring notorious phone-throwing Aussie Russell Crowe as the outlaw. I've seen very few of these Robin Hood features, although I kind of feel that I should at least check out the iconic 1938 version. In this post, however, I'm more concerned with the origins of the character.

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