My colleague, who married a woman from Estonia, told me that summer solstice marks the beginning of Jaanipäev, the biggest holiday in the Estonian calendar. The way he described it, “Everyone flees to the countryside, builds big bonfires, and stays drunk for 2 days.”
Sounds to me like we’re all Estonians.
And while I can’t vouch for the sobriety, or lack thereof, of my fellow cyclists over the next 48 hours or so, I’m pretty sure that the assembled managed to do a fairly good approximation of Jaanipäev revelers for the better part of the shortest night of the year, complete with what Wikipedia tells is the best-known ritual of the evening: the lighting of the bonfire and then jumping over it.
According to Estonian folklore, this is seen as a way of guaranteeing prosperity and avoiding bad luck. Who knows? But one thing’s for sure: the bad luck of falling into the fire and burning one’s private parts was at least avoided, so let’s take that as a propitious omen, shall we?
It must be a deep-seated human impulse, something we’re essentially hard-wired by evolution and genetics to do; otherwise, how are we to explain this confluence of behaviors across thousands of miles and hundreds of years?
Well, it could be the staying drunk part, of course.
But still.
The festivities were also enhanced by the last installment of several year-old remains of vintage Farmer Ito brand cannabis which, while admittedly, just as dry and stale as the eponymous cultivator’s sense of “humor,” still did the trick when consumed in mass quantities and enhanced by gluten-free space cookies courtesy of L. Choi Bakeries, Inc.
There’s no doubt these are trying times; as I’m sure your average Estonian knows, we live in a world where the Balkans are Balkanized, where Finland, is Finlanized, and where people still get Shanghaied by forces far beyond their control.
Fortunately, we can still come together and get Estoniaed out of our minds.
Sounds to me like we’re all Estonians.
And while I can’t vouch for the sobriety, or lack thereof, of my fellow cyclists over the next 48 hours or so, I’m pretty sure that the assembled managed to do a fairly good approximation of Jaanipäev revelers for the better part of the shortest night of the year, complete with what Wikipedia tells is the best-known ritual of the evening: the lighting of the bonfire and then jumping over it.
According to Estonian folklore, this is seen as a way of guaranteeing prosperity and avoiding bad luck. Who knows? But one thing’s for sure: the bad luck of falling into the fire and burning one’s private parts was at least avoided, so let’s take that as a propitious omen, shall we?
It must be a deep-seated human impulse, something we’re essentially hard-wired by evolution and genetics to do; otherwise, how are we to explain this confluence of behaviors across thousands of miles and hundreds of years?
Well, it could be the staying drunk part, of course.
But still.
The festivities were also enhanced by the last installment of several year-old remains of vintage Farmer Ito brand cannabis which, while admittedly, just as dry and stale as the eponymous cultivator’s sense of “humor,” still did the trick when consumed in mass quantities and enhanced by gluten-free space cookies courtesy of L. Choi Bakeries, Inc.
There’s no doubt these are trying times; as I’m sure your average Estonian knows, we live in a world where the Balkans are Balkanized, where Finland, is Finlanized, and where people still get Shanghaied by forces far beyond their control.
Fortunately, we can still come together and get Estoniaed out of our minds.
No comments:
Post a Comment