fun, strange holidays grouped by month

August 13 is TugFest

Today is the 30th annual TugFest. In 1987, residents of Port Byron, Illinois, and LeClaire, Iowa, decided it would be fun to have a tug-of-war. They didn’t let the fact that the towns are separated by the Mississippi River get in their way.

tugfest 2016

Preparing for the heave-ho on the Iowan side

tugfest 2016

The tradition continues today with 11 teams of 20 tuggers on either side of 2700 feet of rope, vying each year for bragging rights and custody of the trophy, an alabaster statue of an eagle in flight.

Traffic on the Mississippi River is halted for the duration of the competition, which is sponsored by local businesses and benefits kids’ clubs and charities.

Other events taking place this weekend include a parade, food vendors, 5K run, carnival rides on both sides of the river and one big fireworks display on Friday night.

More than 35,000 people are expected to attend this year.Whether you’re participating or just enjoying watching the fun, have a happy TugFest!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

July 18 is World Listening Day

world listening day

Nice work, if you can get it.

Today is World Listening Day. It honors the birth on July 18, 1933, of Raymond Murray Schafer, the Canadian composer, teacher and environmentalist who invented the study of acoustic ecology at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University in the late 1960s.

Acoustic ecology uses field recordings to create and preserve the planet’s disappearing soundscapes while battling schizophonia, a word Schafer coined to define a unique medical condition. “We have split the sound from the maker of the sound,” Schafer explained.

“Sounds have been torn from their natural sockets and given an amplified and independent existence. Vocal sound, for instance, is no longer tied to a hole in the head but is free to issue from anywhere in the landscape.” We have a strong sensory response to this: it smells like feces and sounds like tenure.

The first World Soundscape Project was born from Schafer’s annoyance at the noise pollution he felt was ruining beautiful Vancouver.  It has evolved into a serious course of study. This business of listening seems to rely on a whole lot of talking.

The World Listening Project (WLP) was created in 2008 as a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization dedicated to understanding societies, cultures and environments by listening and preserving audio. Finally, someone has found a way to achieve tax-exempt status for recording a garage band or just the sound a garage makes.

WLP and the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology (MSE), under the auspices of the American Society for Acoustic Ecology (ASAE), created World Listening Day in 2010. Why? Per its site:

Cities’ sonic identities are continually fluctuating as residential and commercial infrastructures develop. The resultant social dynamics of industrialization and gentrification sponsor variegated relationships between people and the public and private places they occupy.

“…sponsor variegated relationships”? It looks like a thesaurus bled out all over an SAT. We get it: change sucks. Why can’t everything be like yesterday? If only we had a way to preserve it forever, like on DVD, but without the pesky visuals.

The theme of World Listening Day 2016 is “Sounds Lost and Found.” Per the organizers:

[W]e invite you to dig into crates of vinyl and cassettes, dive into digital archives, and engage deeply with memories and unheard languages to rediscover or identify these “lost sounds.”

While we agree that listening is an essential and underappreciated art, we don’t understand the need to starve other senses like sight to do it; we aren’t sure we can engage deeply with an unheard language. But maybe we weren’t listening closely enough. Would you mind repeating it?

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

July 14 is National Hot Dog Day

national hot dog dayToday is National Hot Dog Day, according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC), an august body created by the North American Meat Institute, which has declared July to be National Hot Dog Month.

The NHDSC serves as a clearinghouse of information about the preparation and nutritional quality of hot dogs and sausages, funded by contributions from manufacturers and their suppliers.

National Hot Dog Day was established in 1991 to coincide with the Annual Hot Dog Lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. As a result, the holiday’s date is dictated by the congressional calendar and typically occurs in the third or fourth week of July.

Because of the 2016 Republican and Democratic national conventions, the lunch was rescheduled to today. Many hot dog franchises have chosen to celebrate the holiday on July 23rd, because last year’s National Hot Dog Day fell on that date.

With the support of many holiday calendar websites, July 23rd’s observance may stick around. But hot dog lovers and NHDSC aren’t complaining. In National Hot Dog Month, does it matter?

Ten percent of all hot dogs are purchased in July, according to Janet Riley, NHDSC’s “Queen of Wien.”

Here are a few more stats:

  • In 2015, nearly 1 billion pounds of hot dogs were sold in retail stores, adding up to more than $2.5 billion in sales.
  • From Memorial Day to Labor Day, Americans consume 7 billion hot dogs. That’s 818 hot dogs eaten every second during that period.
  • The NHDSC predicts that major league ballparks will sell 18.5 million hot dogs during baseball season this year.
  • Los Angeles was last year’s top hot dog consuming city: Angelenos ate more than 34 million pounds. New York took second place, followed by Phoenix, Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, Washington, DC and Tampa.

Have a happy National Hot Dog Day!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

July 9 is Flitch Day

flitch day

Flitch bearers, 2016

Today is Flitch Day, a custom dating back to 1104 in Little Dunmow, a village in Essex, England.

First, a little background is in order. A flitch is half a pig, cut lengthwise, salted and cured, also known as a full side of bacon. The story goes that a year and a day after their nuptials, Lord Reginald Fitzwater and his wife disguised themselves as peasants and traveled to the local monastery to beg blessings for their happy marriage.

The monk who received them was so impressed by their devotion that he gave them a flitch. In what could be called the first episode of Undercover Boss, Lord Fitzwater revealed his identity and promised his land to the monastery. He had one condition: the monks must award a flitch to any couple who could prove their love after a year and a day. (Who better to judge marital bliss than men who’ve taken a vow of chastity?)

Word of the tradition called the Dunmow Flitch Trials spread. Author William Langland referred to it in his 1362 book, The Vision of Piers Plowman. In the early 15th century, Geoffrey Chaucer alluded to it in The Canterbury Tales.

Records weren’t kept until 1445, when Richard Wright of Norwich was victorious, according to documents preserved in the British Museum. One hundred years later, King Henry VIII closed the monasteries, but the trials endured, overseen by the current Lord of the Manor.

In 1832, George Wade, Steward of Little Dunmow, declared the contest “an idle custom bringing people of indifferent character into the neighborhood.” The Dunmow Flitch Trials moved to Great Dunmow but declined in popularity, then lapsed entirely.

The custom was revived after the success of Harrison Ainsworth’s  novel, The Custom of Dunmow, published in 1855. In it, he told the tale of a man so desperate to win the flitch that he married a succession of wives to find his perfect match.

The event has been held in Great Dunmow ever since. After World War II, it was decided that the trials would take place only in leap years. Luckily, 2016 is such a year. If you can’t make it there today, you have four more years to perfect your marriage. Who knows? In 2020, they might allow same-sex couples!

Did the phrase “bring home the bacon” originate with this contest? Though many believe so, we may never be certain. By the way, losers aren’t sent home empty-handed. They receive a consolation prize of gammon, the hind leg of a pig. The one thing we know for sure is that this is no fun for the pigs.

Happy Flitch Day!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays