True love.

 

The end of Christmas!

Sure, it's Groundhog Day (again!), but that's just a silly regional fun day. Today is also a more somber day, one on which we remember one of my favorite saints, Simeon.  

First of all, we should note that in medieval England, the Christmas celebration ended on Candlemas, February 2, forty days after Christmas Day. This may seem like too much of a good thing, but we have to remember that Advent was not a time of Christmas parties and general hoopla as it is now. Rather, Advent was like a mini-Lent, and not the celebration period. So for them, Christmas was the start of the festivities, not the end. I enjoy what we call the Christmas season (Thanksgiving through New Year's), but it really has turned the celebration on its head.

So what is Candlemas, more officially known as the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord? It's what it sounds like, the commemoration of Mary and Joseph taking the baby Jesus to the temple, which was the custom of the time, to have the baby consecrated to God. (This followed the 40-day purification period after childbirth, which enabled the mother to get over having birthed a child!) Since we don't know much about the childhood of Jesus, this does make a natural bookend to the Christmas season. 

At the temple, according to Luke, two saints are met: the prophetess Anna, and my man Simeon. There is something about Simeon I love. His extraordinary patience is admirable -- I have no patience, so I admire it in others. 

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.

This man was righteous and devout,

awaiting the consolation of Israel,

and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit

that he should not see death

before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. 

He came in the Spirit into the temple;

and when the parents brought in the child Jesus

to perform the custom of the law in regard to him,

he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying:

    “Now, Master, you may let your servant go 

        in peace, according to your word,

    for my eyes have seen your salvation,

        which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples:

    a light for revelation to the Gentiles,

        and glory for your people Israel.”

The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him;

and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother,

“Behold, this child is destined

for the fall and rise of many in Israel,

and to be a sign that will be contradicted

--and you yourself a sword will pierce--

so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

Pretty harsh words for Mary, but he only spoke the truth. The prayer to God, known as the Canticle of Simeon, is called also the nunc dimittis, from the opening words in the Latin vulgate -- "Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine" ("Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord").

So now Christmas is over. You may take down your decorations. I almost waited that long, but just because I was so busy -- the fake tree didn't retire to the cellar until January 20, I think.

Today's Feast of the Presentation is also called Candlemas because of the traditional blessing of the candles used in church at Mass. Parishioners are often invited to bring candles from home for this blessing, too. This comes from Simeon's declaration of Jesus as "a light for revelation to the Gentiles". 

So is it just a coincidence that Groundhog Day calls on Candlemas?  

Probably not. According to Dr. Wiki, the Germans had a superstition related to Candlemas, about its weather being the determinant factor of the timing of spring weather (although the Germans turned mostly Lutheran, they held on to Candlemas). This predictive belief got tied to the local badger, whose actions during Candlemas week would give them a heads-up on when they could expect to start planting. That got transferred with the Germans to Pennsylvania, and the preponderance of groundhogs rather than badgers led to the modern Groundhog Day. 

It's an interesting lesson for how we shuffle things around in the modern world. A period of fasting and preparation (Advent) becomes the period of feasting and merriment (the Christmas season) and a day of dedication and blessing becomes a day for a rodent to forecast the weather. I'm sure there's more to be made of this topic, but I'm cold and grumpy. Just walked the dog and I'm freezing. That little jerk in Punxsutawney had better not see his shadow today. 

A common problem.

I could probably write a post tagged to this image every single stinking day and not run out of material. 

But today's stupid is the American office worker who expects the company to love him/her/them/it/whatever. This is all the fault of Silicon Valley, and it's a rude awakening for many young workers. 

The sides in the stupid/venial fight between management and labor often shift in America. From the Gilded Age we had heartless companies and stupid workers. In the fifties the companies got stupid (assuming the good times would last forever) and the workers got venial, threatening strikes and getting so many cookies out of the cookie jar that the companies became hollowed-out bakeries. In the eighties and nineties, the companies got venial again, enjoying the ultimate flexibility of sending jobs out of the country and destroying factory towns across the nation, to the shock of workers. 

Into this brouhaha stepped the companies of the Silicon Valley, who promised a veritable heaven on earth for their workers. Sure, they would be expected to be dedicated, work long hours, and devote themselves body and soul, but they'd get everything they could want -- money, respect, free food, laundry services, and so on. 

Now the Silicon Valley companies are laying people off, cutting salaries and freebies, and the employees are running around with their dresses up over their heads. No one can believe that a company could do such a thing! Except companies have always done such things. Sometimes it's the only way they can survive. 

But the modern generation is as gobsmacked as a kid who gets dumped for the first time. I thought it was forever! That's because you were thinking wishfully and ignoring the lessons of history. 

Those of us who have worked in other businesses can't help but be a little schadenfreudey over the whole thing. I've been laid off three and a half times (one was a part-time job). It happens. The landscape changes. The rich people on top are not going to put their personal money into the company to keep the perks flowing, but even they can take a hit, and they might get defenestrated if it's a public company. It's messy. It's a financial and professional disaster. It's life. 

So don't be stupid. Don't throw yourself into all the team-building. Don't assume the good times will last and you can just relax and delete your résumé. Anyone can be dumb by nature, but willful dumbness invites retribution. It can rain stupid or venial at any time, so keep your umbrella handy. 

Technical difficulties.

 

“Fiber damage” — sounds like some psychotic squirrel went after the wires. Hope to return to what passes for normalcy here tomorrow.

Having a X time.

This one's kicked around the Internet for a while, and I went looking for its source.

It's a clever take of the early-to-mid twentieth century type -- using the forms of the new era (in both senses of the word) to poke fun at the stuffiness of the formal letter-writing era and the current mania for speed and efficiency, while at the same time affecting the gladhanding merriment of the man on the go. But is it real?

I wondered, because while most of the slangese seemed American (all wet, dough-re-mi), needing "a pint" seemed more British. However, a man in American desiring a pint would normally be looking for a 16-ounce bottle of booze to carry him along rather than a pint of beer in the pub, so that might fit.

And I was right, in the end. Thanks to eBay, I found other cards of this type. What we see here is just half of the front of the card; here's a whole card.

The seller included a photo of the card's back, which told me the thing was made by Dexter Press of West Nyack, New York, a half hour drive from where I'm sitting as I type this.

The Postcard History site has helpful information on Dexter, founded by Thomas Dexter as a one-man press in 1920. It's well known among postcard buffs for the "natural color" postcards like the one above, which were printed after 1952. Another postcard-interest site tells us that Dexter closed its operations in New York in 1984, and moved to Aurora, Missouri: "As a subsidiary, they now print religious material under the MWM Dexter name." But that entry was from 2017; an attempt to follow the link to the MWM Dexter site came up blank. At some point they became (in whole or part) Dexter Hospitality, but now it looks like that's gone too. I fear for the current state of Mr. Dexter's company.

As for the Indian-themed card above, the Postcard History site dates it to 1962. That makes sense. The language in the oh-so-snappy checklist is just a little dated. It doesn't sound like the way the kids talked in 1962 ("pep" and "helluva" sound more forties to me), but probably the way a breezy guy who'd been a kid ten or twenty years earlier would talk.

So that's what I found out about a little slice of Americana. If anyone knows more about the fate of Mr. Dexter's company, drop me a line. I'm always curious about publishing. 

O Solo Memo.

Yeah, was busy yesterday. Beloved friends came over for dinner. We hadn't panic cleaned in a while, and it showed. So, once again we have Sunday memes for you, fresh off the meme presses, in lieu of any long-form thoughts.

And on this topic:

 

Hungry for a football?

Not hungry for some football, but a football. 

Yes, this little... thing is supposed to be a football-shaped tortilla chip. See the laces on top?

Tostitos, a Pepsi-owned Frito-Lay product, has done foot-ball shaped chips before, but not if I recall correctly in their Hint of Lime flavor. That's the favorite of the L&T Mrs. Key.  

These are thicker and smaller than the usual Tostitos chip, which is okay -- less chance of breakage when going for the dip. While not being an authentic-type cantina-style tortilla chip, they're still a much closer approximation than Fritos. 

A lot are still busted in the bag, of course. Despite the nitrogen in the bag, fumbles will happen, and I'd say maybe 40% of the chips did not maintain a perfect football shape. They still taste the same, of course, and the proof of the tortilla chip is in the eating.

Pepsico's sponsorship with the NFL is intended to meld the football-watching experience with the chip-and-soda consuming experience, but nope -- I'm still not watching. Since the NFL decided to take a dump on its biggest fans in 2020, I've maintained my anti-NFL stance, which will probably remain in place until Roger Goodell walks out of the building with his cardboard box of desk tchotchkes. Those of us who hoped that at least the NFL and the armed forces would be resistant to the poke of wokeness were and are disgusted by just how fast they folded. They collapsed like a, well, a bag of Tostitos under a fat guy's ass. All that remained were busted chips and some gas.

It's as well for me, since the Giants suffered their worst playoff loss, against the Santa-hating Eagles, since the embarrassing Super Bowl XXVI. I wouldn't have even bothered with the football-shaped chips, but that was all they had, and my wife wanted Hint of Lime Tostitos.

On the bright side, when it comes to eating the ball, a football-shaped chip is a lot more pleasant than being sacked by a 300-pound lunatic, so there's that.