M&D - Chapter 19 - The Calendar and Easter

[Elisabeth Romberg]

Cheers David! good find. I particularly liked the last third of the article. I must say, the idea of April's fools being a left over from "renewal"-festival is the most appealing to my world view. 

Easter is such a deep rooted festival, isn't it, more than Christmas, in my opinion, even goes beyond the calendar, being the only annual festival that still follows the moon. The third full moon after Winter Solstice I believe. This moon is called Pink Moon, or Pink Egg Moon (where Nick Drake got his album title from). 

All the other festivals now commonly follow a spesific date, like Christmas, or are pushed to the weekend nearest to the full moon, like Summer Solstice or Halloween, as to not interfere with work. Or they are in Norway, anyway. I don't know what the customs are in the united states, but would you say Thanksgiving, Halloween, (are there others?) are usually celebrated at weekends, and not on the fool moon. Sorry, full moon.





Elisabeth Romberg
eromberg at mac.com


Sent from my iPad

> On Apr 1, 2015, at 6:43 PM, David Ewers <dsewers at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> April Fool's Day and calendar reform:
> http://hoaxes.org/af_database/permalink/origin_of_april_fools_day
> 
> Here's the Hogarth painting:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Hogarth_028.jpg
> 
>> On Apr 1, 2015, at 3:36 AM have a nice day, violet wrote this message:), Elisabeth Romberg wrote:
>> 
>> p.192-193
>> Mason is challenged to let the others present in on his knowledge gained whilst working beside Bradley. 
>> He is still in a bit of a shock after being turned away at the funeral, and he only wanted a pint! But he settles into a «gather ye around…» kind of attitude, «producing his pipe»… starts spinning a tale.
>> 
>> This sentence: «(…)the younger Macclesfield,- intern’d not as to space, but rather …Time.» A hint that Macclesfield was given the place at the RC to specifically carry out this business with the eleven days, not to look at stars (space). That that was his given mission? And that he was rewarded with the presidency at the RC in return. 
>> Not a passionate star-gazer then, but a pawn?
>> 
>> p.193
>> Then there is a shift in the Point of View.
>> A dialogue between master-servant, Macclesfield-Bradley.
>> So this is Mason narrating.
>> 
>> Starting off with Macclesfield: «My father required but four years as Earl of Macclesfield to bring the name down.» 
>> Impeachment is a step in the removal of a public official. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment
>> 
>> It seems its a case of history repeating itself then, because when Macclesfield's son ran for parliament (as a Whig in 1754) «resentment  over his role in the calendar reform was one of many issues raised by the son’s Tory opponents.» 
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Parker,_2nd_Earl_of_Macclesfield
> 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20150401/f512b176/attachment.html>