this morning people were all standing around huffing and puffing with cold superior faces and jaded body postures, chiming in, each one after another, about how they don’t celebrate valentine’s day because it’s crass and commercial and manufactured, etc, etc. they were all falling over themselves to let their “total agreement” on the subject be known. i wanted to point out the flawed logic of the “crass and commercial” argument. but why bother? i aimed a fake yawn in their general direction walked away.

“you don’t care? yeah, me either. so crass. so fake! let me tell you a long boring ultimately pointless anecdote pertaining to this holiday, which i tell every year as a means of adding proper weight to my definitive thumbs down decision…” blah blah blah, who gives a shit?!

if you insist on yapping about it then the hallmark and godiva terrorists have already won!

Why can’t people just accept that all is flux? What happens 2, 5, 10 years from now when these holiday haters find themselves crazy in love with a nice, simple sort who enjoys holidays and wants nothing more than to exchange valentine pleasantries when the day arrives? Will they give this grave speech again about all the reasons why the holiday sucks and deprive their love of such simple pleasures? Nope. They’ll just buy some chocolate and flowers and hand them over with a happy kiss. Why can’t people just resist the urge to make grand proclamations?

I’m no holiday lover mind you, but me and my gal are going to see some jazz tonight, so no complaints here.

Anyhow, good link tom. Funny stuff.

post script: i for one think of holidays in general as “get out of bringing meaning to your day free cards.” if your into that sort of thing. Barring a fascist ideologically iron fisted state holidays may be the next best thing to mind control. a context is forced on you, and you know damn well, like it or not, you will ponder that pre-fab context at some point on that day. There is no way out. Most people have little need to think about groundhogs. They will most assuredly, at least momentarily, think of them on groundhogs day.

I say all of reality ought to be simplified exactly enough to be categorized in 365 categories, and each day ought to be a holiday celebrating one of them. That way you can cram all your thought on said subject into one day. marketers can cram all of their related advertising into that day as well. Pathos day! Fowl day! Obscure 18th century inventions day! People would get so worn out explaining each day why they embrace or reject that day’s holiday that they’d eventually just abandon their knee jerk cultural criticism and quiet down ... Nah, it’d never work would it? People will never shut their yaps will they? So Never mind.

posted on 02.14 at 10:02 PMjmorrison


Hmmm. Nevermind VD. I refuse even to acknowledge the thing. Why bother. Even with a ‘chick’ I never celebrated it either. These consumer festival come and go like the rain ...

posted on 02.14 at 10:06 PMorangeguru

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