Looking Forward Looking Back

January, the first month, is named for Janus, the two-faced god. (Ianus in Latin since the Roman alphabet had no J) He could look backward to view the past and forward to greet the future. In virtually every culture at the conclusion of the year, thoughts turn to what has been and what will be.

As the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve, loud noises fill the air to scare off the evil spirits of the past year. Fireworks, noise makers, pistol reports, the clang of pots and pans, Auld Lang Syne sang off-key, a cacophony of sundry sounds serenade us as we enter the new year.

The first visitor over the threshold after midnight is a portent of the new year. A dark-haired attractive person foretells good fortune. Ideally he/she should carry a lump of coal, a coin and a piece of corn or grain. These objects insure warmth, wealth and bounty for the upcoming year. Beware of redheads! For if a person with red hair should be the first through your door, a tumultuous year awaits. Less adventurous sorts have a dark-haired ringer waiting in the wings to guarantee an advantageous transition.

Not only the pandemonium you make, or the people who darken your doorway, but the food you serve on the first day of the year impacts the next 364. Many prepare pork, or other porcine products. Why pork? Because pigs root forward. Cows stand still and chickens scratch backwards. Symbolically, pork helps us prepare for what comes ahead. From the southern United States, by way of the Caribbean, comes the traditional New Year's dish - Hoppin' John - black-eyed peas cooked with ham hocks or fatback, rice and collard greens. Eaten on New Year's Day, this concoction bestows good fortune.

So as the new year approaches, look back fondly, look forward excitedly, but most importantly enjoy the now. The past is but a memory; the future but a dream. The present is to be savored. - as ever BB

"There is superstition in avoiding superstitions." - Francis Bacon

Santa's Other Half

I don't mean Mrs. Claus, but Kris Kringle's retribution doppelganger. In many cultures, the seasonal gift-giver is accompanied by a less benevolent sidekick whose metier is to punish the naughty.

With the modern world's predilection for saccrification and innocuousness, the dark side of the holiday has waned. This "Pollyanna" effect, has removed some of the more interesting Christmas figures. Here's a short list of my favorites:

Krampus - with goat horns and cloven hoofs, this counterpart to St. Nicolas bears more than a slight resemblance to Satan. His demonic mien and rattling rusty chains frighten bad children into contrition. In modern Austria, Krampus celebrations have a feeling of Mardi Gras with costumes and drinking. The party hearkens back to Roman Saturnalia which also occurred in late December.

Black Peter - in German, Zwarte Piet, he assists St. Nicolas. Resembling a wild man clad in fur, he goes down the chimney, ergo his black, sooty appearance. Peter delivers candy and treats in good children's shoes and leaves only soot for the bad ones.

Belsnickel - Santa Claus brings candy and gifts to the good children. For the naughty ones, Belsnickel leaves lumps of coal and switches for the parents to whip the mischievous ones into better behaviour. In France, he is known as Le Pere Fouettard, the Whipping Father.

Rather than focus on the yin of rewarding good behavior and the yang of punishment for bad behavior, we should stress caring and giving for this season and throughout the year. Although, it couldn't hurt to carry a switch to smite those little mischief makers . The writer assumes no responsibility for ensuing legal action - as ever - BB

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, than we are a sorry lot indeed." - Albert Einstein

Tribuo Nos Gratiae

Give us thanks!

As the fourth Thursday in November approaches, Americans prepare to give thanks. One traditional observance is the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Immortalized on film in Miracle on 34th Street, the Macy's parade was not the nation's first. That honor goes to Philadelphia's Gimbel's Parade which began in 1920, four years before Macy's. Gimbels is no more, but floats, bands, and, yes, mummers, still march to the Art Museum in the City of Brotherly Love.

Parades have a murky history. They combine the solemnity of religious processions, the order of military marches and the revels of mumming. Dating back to the Middle Ages, mummers would don guises and perform plays, often comedic, in the streets. They danced from house to house, often stopping to perform in pubs. By the 17th century, mumming became a release in which people could hide their identities and celebrate without the constraints of civility.

As you prepare for this annual feast, index what you have to give thanks for and gird your loins for the upcoming holiday lunacy, take a moment to relax. Put on a silly mask, grab and old pot, bang on it creating a cacophonous din and dance down your street bellowing your thanks to all. The neighbors will give thanks that they are not as crazy as you. As ever - BB

"I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to made me sad..." - William Shakespeare

Inspiration

The literal Latin translation is to breathe upon. At the oracle of Delphi, a priest would inhale vapors to divine the will of the gods. By the 4th century BC, inspiration anthropomorphized into the nine muses. Each goddess enkindled a specific art form.

Mine is Calliope, muse of epic poetry, not to be confused with Erato, muse of lyric poetry. I worked on a riverboat which had a steam organ, also called a calliope - from the Greek beautiful voice. While I enjoyed the music and the engineering, those living close by eschewed the noisy machine's beautiful voice appellation for a more offensive one. But I digress...

With the rise of Christianity, the Holy Spirit replaced the muses. During the Enlightenment, man turned inward for inspiration. Romantics like Rimbaud and Verlaine used alcohol and drugs. Tolstoy wrote in the village square drawing inspiration from people's faces. Thoreau went into the quiet woods. Marxists believe creative motivation comes from class struggle. Freud traced artistic motivation to the inner psyche.

Each of us must find our own inspirations. It matters not how or where. What we must do is heed our own muse and nourish the muse in others. As ever- BB

"Man's mind, stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimension." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Remembrance of Halloweens Past

Tis the season for "ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night." For me, All Hallows' Eve evokes the nostalgia of youth. My hometown, Haddonfield, NJ, was perfect for Halloween. A small Quaker village located seven miles across the Delaware River from Philadelphia and first settled in the late 17th century.

Its name derives from the fact that most of the town's land made up the fields of Elizabeth Haddon. Daughter of a wealthy Quaker, she came to the colonies at the turn of the 18th century to manage her father's holdings. There she fell in love with and married an impoverished Quaker minister. Their love story is the theme of "The Theologian's Tale: Elizabeth" from Longfellow's Tales of the Wayside Inn.

During the Revolution, England's mercenary Hessians retreated to Haddonfield after the Battle of Red Bank. Many were laid to rest in the town graveyard. Elizabeth Haddon is buried there too, close to the marker pictured above. Many a dark night, I sat in that graveyard delighting in the disquieting darkness and macabre melancholy.

Stories abound of a headless Hessian who was buried there. Each Halloween night, he wanders the dark recesses of town searching for his head. In my youth, a rite of passage was to walk alone in that graveyard late on Halloween night only to be scared witless by the older kids. The next year you helped frighten the next group of neophytes.

Many years later, I was dating a woman who loved Halloween. One October 31, just before midnight, I took her to the graveyard to relive the past. In the interim, halogen lights were installed on the Quaker meeting house and the fire station that border the graveyard. They were to ward off young ne're-do-wells which apparently I was back then. Rather than savor the eerie darkness and whispering trees, the illumination allowed us to read inscriptions on the gravestones. Thomas Wolfe was right; you can't go home again. As ever - BB

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." - Edgar Allan Poe

End of the World

Armageddon, Apocalypse, Last Judgement, Rapture, Big Crunch...time's up; we're outta here. Will the earth collapse in a conflagration of fire and brimstone? Will dolphins fly from the oceans as they bid mankind, "So long and thanks for the fish"?

For millennia, man has pondered the world's demise, but today, the end has become big business. Programs on it fill our airways. Volumes fill our bookstores. Films fill our theaters. So who's to blame?

Nostradamus - I've read the original "Centuries" and they are as ambiguous as Dylan's lyrics. Maybe "the transgressor" mentioned in Century IX was Quinn the Eskimo?

The Maya - 2012 is approaching which some say the Mayan prophesied as the end of time. Their descendants deny this; claiming Mayan eschatology differs from the Western European concept. Therein lies our misunderstanding of their cycle of time.

The Bible - various prophets have looked at the old and new testaments for a clue to our end. William Miller used the Bible to predict the day of the world's demise in 1844...twice. Erroneous both times, his followers still believed in the concept, but credited bad interpretation for doom's no-show. They went and formed the Seventh Day Adventists.

The true imminent doomsday is the loss of the daily newspaper. Sure, we can get news from the Internet or TV, but what about eating at a diner? Imagine sitting in a diner without a paper to read. Eggs, scrapple and cup of coffee without a sports page? It's unthinkable! This is what Nostradamus referred to as "The grandeur of the translator will come to fail." Where's the History Channel when you need it? As ever BB

Adam & Eve on a raft, wreck'em, mystery in the alley & moo juice"

Scrambled eggs on toast with a side of corned beef hash and a glass of milk in diner-speak.

Come Together

Here come old flat top, he come grooving up slowly

Compromise - to come together in agreement - parties involve themselves in a process of give and take to reach a plan that works. Over the past few years, this concept has become vestigial in American politics.

Historian Shelby Foote postulated that one of the causes of the Civil War was Americans failing to do the thing for which they have true genius - compromise. The vitriol apparent in current debates on health care, foreign policy, the economy, or any topic you wish to insert, hearken back to those dark days.

Actually, I use a misnomer. A debate is an interactive argument in which facts, logic and rhetorical persuasion are used to support or negate a proposition. Today, political discourse has deteriorated to chaotic chauvinistic calumniation. Both sides are culpable.

Demagogues speak as if imbued with papal infallibility. To change one's opinion, or to compromise for the greater good is anathema. Displaying the ability to change his/her opinion, or just consider a different point of view brands a politician with the stigmata of "Waffler."

This unilateral discourse bodes ill for our future. George Washington and John Adams often paraphrased the popular 18th century play Cato: "We cannot command success, but we deserve it.' I'm not sure we deserve it anymore - as ever BB

"Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed and are right." H.L. Mencken