Have you ever thought that life would be much better if the calendar was adjusted? Say, put forward about six weeks, so the shortest day actually fell about early November?
That way, there's a much higher chance of snow at New Christmas (still on 25 New December), because there's always more snow in late Old Jan/early Old Feb than around Old Christmas anyway. Spring would start at the end of New January, which would be nice. The longest day would be in early New May - we could even rig it so that it fell on May Day, which would make the pagans happy - and everyone could have their summer holidays in the hot weather in New June (Old July/August), which is better, because then it's only six months between then and New Christmas, rather than eight.
Ah, you say, but wouldn't New October be really grim? Dark, cold, no Christmas or New Year to cheer people up?
Well, you just have to have a really big party for Hallowe'en and Guy Fawkes Night - make the whole thing into a sort of week-long Feast of Fools, which is what all the disguise and Guy Fawkes and so on is more or less about anyway. Bring in new Misrule traditions, like schoolchildren can wear whatever they like, but the teachers have to wear uniforms. MDs go round and bring their staff tea and biscuits.
Clearly, there are practical concerns. The transitional year would be ten months long. But with a little ingenuity, I'm sure this could be overcome. Don't forget that the world functions with different calendars anyway. Previous changeovers have happened, apparently without violence. At least this one wouldn't require a completely new set of names for the days and months.
Read the links, by the way. It's entertaining to think that to some (fairly strange) people, today is Sweetmorn, 8th of Discord, 3172; Yellowday, 21st of March, 2006; Thursday 25th of Aristotle, Year 216 after the Great Crisis; Duodi, 1ere Decade de Germinal, 214eme Annee de la Revolution; or even Jaguar, Trecena of the Deer, Year of the Rabbit.
5 comments:
Haha, cool stuff. Alec, do you just surf the internet (or wikipedia) for interesting incredibly random stuff all the time?
I like all the different calendars, what a shame it isn't the 8th of Discord. I'm also struck by the Positivist Calendar - the second month being called Homer would presumably lead to some confusion these days...
The Discord one shares with the World Calendar the idea that to be more regular (e.g. year always starts on the same day of the week) you would slip in extra days, which were not days of the week at all. I find this idea quite cool, but at the same time, strangely unsettling.
I also ended up reading about the Darian Calendar (a proposed Calendar for Martian settlers), which apparently the 'Mars community' started fighting over, such that several alternative calendars, with different names for everything, were proposed. Mars enthusiasts are argumentative buggers. It doesn't bode well for the whole colonising project, if you ask me.
No, I had the idea about altering the calendar first and then thought I would put in a bit at the end about different calendars. I knew about the French Revolutionary calendar, but not the others. I rather like the extra intercalary days idea, and don't find it disturbing at all.
Personally I think calendars should be as irregular as possible. I want intercalary days and months, as many as possible, and months with anything from 9 to 43 days and very silly names indeed. I suggest Hedgerow, Bob, Afterbob, Flange, Termite, Diapason, Coriolanus, Scoria, Metic, Help, Athanasius and McCartney. Every 80th year would also include the intercalary four-day month of Camelfold.
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Well, I kind of like the intercalary days, but it seems somehow illicit. Like you'd be stealing an unreal magic day from the universe somehow. Which is the cool bit, and that which is illicit is usually enticing.
But then I have this vague sense that for the day after a Sunday to be not-a-Monday is some kind of insult to the laws of nature, a denial of the intrinsic Mondayness of Mondays. This Mondayness, while it is quite clearly culturally determined, has nevertheless been as inexorable as rain being wet in my phenomenological experience of existence so far.
Actually, that's a very good reason for adopting this new system! Let us intercalate days left, right and centre and we shall bestride the phenomenological realm like colossi!
And right, good names, how about Serendipity? Wouldn't you like your birthday to be the 1st of Serendipity? Also Balderdash and Piffle, Quark and Charm, Turnip ('cos turnips are just funny), Colander and Filtrum.
I'd like to object to McCartney, on the grounds of Paul.
But you know, to get this off the ground, they'd probably have to have the names chosen by the readers of Heat and Nuts. So we'd end up with months like Brad Pitt, Cellulite and Boobs.
I think you're implying that Monday is a quale.
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