April 30th

On this day... Walpurgis Night celebrated throughout Europe. Behind that galumphing title (makes me think of walrus purging) lies a fascinating muddle of Christian and pagan festivities. Catholics mark it as the feast of St. Walburga, a German nun who lived in the 700s; others associate it with the Wiccan feast of Beltane and other fertility celebrations. According to Wikipedia, it's main mascot is the witch. It's sort of like a friendly, springtime Halloween. I personally would recommend splitting up Halloween celebrations: The night of April 30th will be for the warm, fuzzy aspects of the holiday (little kids in puppy costumes, candy), while October 31st is reserved for horror movie marathons, high school keggers, and all other forces of darkness. How much cuter would it be to see children in fanciful outfits gorging themselves against a background of butterflies and spring vegetation? Not to mention how much warmer for those who have to accompany said cute children from house to house? The lengthened days would provide more safety for the trick-or-treaters; adults wouldn't have to worry about scheduling their plans and those of their kids into the same night, because the grown-up parties would be in the fall. It's genius, I tell you. (Why does no one listen?)
The internet is a fickle temptress - I get online looking for good blog links, but end up spending an hour on crap ghost photos. It's so frustrating - Everyone who's ever had dust on their camera lens sends it in to these websites, assuming that they've got orbs. Silly, silly.

April 5th

On this day... birth of German violinist Louis Spohr, 1784. I chose this entry not for any outstandingly interesting tidbit about the man himself (though he made Faust into an opera and painted a mean self-portrait - see picture), but about the unbelievable volume of members of his profession throughout history. I don't believe a there's been a day of Catcomeback research (a grueling process, requiring several hours hard meditation on a mountaintop followed by a ninja battle) that I didn't encounter at least one famous violinist being born, or dying, or occasionally doing something really noteworthy in between. But then, there are plenty of repeated professions. Take actors and actresses - a dime a dozen, or more like a penny. It may be I focus on violinists because they're my favorite sort of musicians. First, because they play my favorite instrument. There's something about the way a violin sounds almost like a woman's voice that's just spine-tingling. Second, because they were the rock stars of Classical music. Yes, Beethoven was deaf and it was awesome, but women rarely went into hysterical fits during his performances, as they were said to do for Paganini. They had a love of the dramatic (Paganini liked to encourage stories that he was the devil by travelling everywhere in a black coach pulled by black horses). You just don't see that kind of thing nowadays - The Devil Went Down to Georgia doesn't even begin to make up for our dire lack of awesome fiddlers. In fact, the story from that song was cribbed from 18th century violinist Guiseppe Tartini. Tartini claimed that one night he dreamt the devil came into his bedroom in an attempt to bargain for his soul. G.T. challenged him to a violin duel, but the sonata the devil played was so incredible that, upon hearing it, G.T. called the whole thing off. After he woke up, he attempted to reproduce the bizarre sound - he came up with The Devil's Trill, which sounds less demonic than you would think, given the circumstances. I guess standards were different in the 1700s. You can listen to a little of it here. If you're unimpressed, I guess you'll just have to make your own deal for musical fame...

April 3rd

On this day... death of Jesse James, 1882. Shot in the back of the head by friend turned bounty hunter Bob Ford while dusting a picture in his St. Joseph, Missouri home. Ain't it a kick, huh? The dusting is what gets me: people who lead the most extraordinary lives tend to die in the most boring ways, or at least while engaged in boring activities. (See my first entry on Ernest the Explorer). They're making a new movie about him; though I worry his death isn't flashy enough for the usual Brad Pitt film. I figure they'll find a way to work around it. Like maybe there's a keg of dynamite in the root cellar whose fuse is piped up through the wall behind the picture, and instead of dusting it he's really lighting that fuse, so that after he dies and the villanous Ford stands manfully over his beautiful, body hair-less corpse and tosses off a one liner, his clever phrase will be forever cut short by a digitally enhanced fireball. Totally sweet.
I actually have a friend who claims to be related to him - Jesse James, not Brad Pitt - on one side of her family. On the other side she's descended from an Irish Catholic priest and a nun. The first time I heard that, it took me a humiliatingly long time to realize why it was noteworthy. A shameful lapse on my part, since I've often entertained the idea of entering a convent - more out of a desire to see if I could do it than from any religious fervor. I'm spiritual, but it's definitely of a more of a neo-pagan Episcopal bent. I have a little (really little - perhaps miniscule is a better term) side business selling Tarot and palm readings for a couple of bucks each. I'm going nuts to try crystallomancy, but it's simply unbelievably difficult to find a suitable crystal ball. There are plenty for sale online, yes, but I've heard that a buyer really needs to be physically present with a variety of crystals before you find one that fits you best. An antique ebay find is tempting, but you never know where it's been, or who's had their aura all over it. Objects that a person identifies with strongly almost always carry traces of them around forever. And if that person was unpleasant... it's sort of like the objects have a psychic STD. (Or is it STI now? I forget). One can also make a scrying mirror - though I'm inclined to be a bit afraid of them. I always heard that mirrors will steal a corpse's soul if said corpse is carried past one. They can be eerie things. But the mirrormaking instructions I've seen deal with the mirror being painted with an opaqe layer of black spray enamel, so maybe that's alright. Hmm. I may have to get my mom to ferry me to a hardware store soon. I'm lucky to have a mother who supports this sort of thing. She'll back me in just about any activity that might make me a billionare one day. I could be like Miss Cleo - except not. Really, hopefully, desperately not.