TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

 

I have two favorite Christmas carols; the haunting Carol of the Bells, composed in 1904 by Ukrainian Mykola Leontovych, and the seemingly nonsensical Twelve Days of Christmas, which is old enough that we have no idea who composed it. In fact, the Twelve Days of Christmas might even predate Christianity in France, where the song originated. 

And that makes this English carol more interesting - to me, anyway – because it speaks to the evolution of the holiday. Remember, it wasn't until 137 years after the death of Jesus, give or take a couple of years, that the Bishop of Rome ordered a “Christesmaesse” - Christ's Mass -  to celebrate Jesus' birth on the 25th of December - the winter solstice, after which the hours of daylight get 60 seconds longer each day.   

You see, the twelve disciples did not celebrate Christmas, partly because they were Jewish, but mostly because until fairly recently anything from 60 to 80% of infants died within hours of their birth.

Nobody celebrated their birth day, not even Pope Julius I (above), who around 345 A.D. picked December 25^th as Jesus' birth day.  For all humans, even for the Messiah, life did not officially begin until their epiphany, (meaning the public display of the new child), which was not done until you were pretty sure the child was going to live at least for a year or so. And Jesus' epiphany is celebrated in the Catholic church 12 days after Christmas. Or, maybe Jesus was actually born on 6 December - 12 days before 25 December - which is Saint Nicholas day.... If you think about it too much, this holiday can become very confusing.  So let's stick to the song.

This English Christmas Carol began as a  midwinter festival “memories and forfeits game”, a sort of musical chairs in a world without very many chairs. 

We know the game began in France because the Red-legged (or French) partridge (above), widespread in medieval Europe, commonly perches in trees, unlike the the English (or grey) partridges which, while common today, were not introduced to England until the 18^th century, and they prefer nesting on ledges or cliffs. And in all three medieval French versions of the song that we know of, and all surviving English versions, “a partridge in a pear tree” is the first and final present always received by the lead singer. So it all started in France with Red-legged partridges.

In the game the leader sings a verse, and each participant repeats what they have just heard, and everybody then takes a drink of wine or mead. Then the leader sings another verse, adding an item, the players repeat, and then everybody drinks again. The rounds we have inherited begin “On the first day of Christmas, my true love gives to me, a partridge in a pear tree.  On second day of Christmas, my true love gives to me, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.”

The game continues (with variations) to three French Hens, four colly birds, five gold rings, six geese a-laying, seven swans a-swimming, eight maids a-milking, nine ladies dancing, ten lords a-leaping, eleven pipers pipping, and twelve drummers drumming. A player who forgets an item is eliminated and forced to offer a kiss to the leader, or eat a less than appealing food item. The game would continue until all 12 verses were done, or all the players but one had been eliminated because they were too drunk to remember their own names, let alone how many maids were milking. Sound familiar?  How many bottles of beer do you have on your wall?

And yes, the line is “four colly birds”, as in a colliery, meaning a coal pit or a mine. The birds referred to were as black as coal – the common European black bird. When this song was translated into English, crows and ravens were large enough to only be referred to as fowl.

But the 4 ½ ounce Turdus merula (the black thrush) (above), was small enough to be called a bird . In the winter black birds were easy to attract with seed and easy to catch with a net, and they were a common part of the diet. Peasants sang about “four and twenty black birds baked in a pie”, and they meant these cute little guys. It is a reminder that there are huge chunks of our culture based on now forgotten starvation times repeatedly suffered in each life time. And “break fasts,” like the midwinter festival, were fond memories, which Christianity adopted and adapted to.

In fact, birds play a major role in this song, as if the leader was scanning the banquet table for the next noun to use in the next verse. The partridge is followed by turtle doves, French hens, the Colly birds, geese and swans. The five gold rings seem out of place unless they refer to the ring-necked pheasant, the male of which (above) has a golden brown plumage and a white ring around his neck. There would have been such a bird on any well stocked pheasants midwinter festival table, along with the other bird protein

There would also have been cheese (made from milk), and about the room, men and women dancing - but not in pairs, that would not become common until the 10^th century. And of course there would be musicians accompanying the song-game with the world's oldest instruments, a flute (or a pipe) and a drum. Music was as vital a part of pagan religious and social celebrations, as they are of Christian services.

And that brings up the recent myth that this game was used to preserve Catholicism in a hostile Protestant England. That might be true, except there is not even of hint of that story until 1979. However, the success of this myth across the Internet since then, does offer an insight into the methodology Christianity used to snatch Christmas from the happy pagans getting drunk at their winter solstice break fast. 

I am not suggesting a conspiracy, but rather a well meaning application of religiously influenced logic. That is also probably how Mithra over came Apollo, and how Jupiter conquered Zeus. It would be wise for all born again Christian evangelicals to remember that religious practices never really die, they just become adopted and adapted.  That has nothing to do with the validity of any belief. It just means humans have always wanted to believe.

The same can be said about a certain odd mathematical aspect of the carol. If you add up all the gifts – 1 partridge, 2 turtle doves and 1 partridge, 3 French hens, 2 turtle doves and 1 partridge, etc., etc. – they add up to 364 gifts in total. It seems there ought to be some connection between the gifts and the length of the year. The only problem is a year is 365 ¼ days long, not 364, and that time length has been well known since, well, since forever. And while it seems the number of gifts, like some sort of Christmas carol kabbalah, ought to mean something, it really doesn't. And that seems to me to be the difference between religion and science. In religion the possibility of meaning is the meaning, while in science the possibility is theory and subject to testing. Religion gave us the pyramids and Michelangelo's "David". Science gave us a modern infant mortality rate in industrial nations of less then 1% and thus, birthdays.

Which brings us to the Christmas Price Index, created in 1984 by the chief economist for PNC Financial Services Group, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as “a humorous commodity price index to measure the changing cost of goods over time” using the gifts in The Twelve Days of Christmas. Each year in late November, PNC analysts consult with the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden and the National Aviary in Philadelphia to price most of the birds in the song. However, for some reason, rather than a European black bird, PNC uses the price of a canary at Petco. Gordon Jewelers, a division of Zale Corporation out of Irving, Texas, prices five gold rings for the Index, even tho, as I said earlier, the gift probably refereed to was the ring-necked pheasants. The maids-a-milking are assumed to be earning federal minimum wage, and the Philadelphia Dance Company and their Ballet Company provide the cost of leaping and dancing ladies and lords. The Pennsylvania Musicians Union provides the cost of the drummers and pipers, and the fruit tree was by tradition priced by Waterloo Gardens, an upscale Philadelphia plant nursery catering to the local top 1% of green thumbs.

In 2022, thanks to Covid inflation the total price jumped to $45,523.27, a one year increase of 10.5%! The partridge and the pair tree together cost $280.18 - up 25% over last year.  The price of the turtle doves rose by 33% to $600.00.  The trio of French Hens cost  $318,75, an increase of 25%.  The 4 Colling birds (actually Petco canaries) also remained steady for the second year in a row at $599.96.  The five gold rings gained 39.1 % over last year, now priced at $1,245.00.   The price for 6 geese a-laying - at  $720.00 - was up 9%, while  the 7 swans - at $13,125 - ,was unchanged for the second year in a row. The 8 maids a milking -  at just  $58.00  -  has remained flat for the past decade - (which says something very depressing about women and the minimum wage). The price of 9 ladies dancing was up 3% at $8,308.12,  ten lords a leaping cost $13,980 , an increase of 24.2%, and the musicians for wind instruments and the percussionists were both up 2.6% at $3,021.04 and $3,266.93.  

PNC admits they use the index to “engage clients”, which means they are trying to entertain bankers, a profession not known for their humor or their humility. But, PNC also admits this annual nonsense economic measure has become “one of PNC’s most popular and anticipated economic reports.” I suspect that is in large part because it is “filler” used by media types to add a Christmas hint to their newscasts.  However, there may be hidden a more significant meaning, if  you care to look.  In June of 2012, after 70 years in business, the “nationally renowned Waterloo Gardens” went bankrupt. It seems after the "Great Recession",  even the 1% were tightening their belts, which means their gardeners were beginning to starve. And that was in 2012, before the minimum wage was stuck for another 10 years.

In any case, please have a Merry, merry, happy Capitalist Christmas. If you can afford it this year.

  - 30 -

DETERMINATION and STUPIDITY: Suicide

 

I got'ta admire the spunky, determined spirit of the manic depressive fifty year old inmate of Japan's Fuchu Prison, who attempted suicide on 19 February, 2008, While eating dinner he  stabbed himself in the head with the broken end of a chopstick. He failed in his attempt, but you could say this was final proof that you should never play with your food. And I thank God the sad gentleman in question was not restrained in a Swedish prison where he might have had access to a deadly spork.

Another winner of the “determined to do something stupid” award would to be the 46 year old Welsh coal miner Alan Urwin , who over three months in 1994 survived three separate self administered drug overdoses. Not one to be discouraged easily, Alan then decided to electrocute himself by wrapping a bare electric cord around his naked body and climbing into a full bathtub. When he plugged himself into the wall he blew a fuse and suffered a damn good shock. But he survived.

However, showing a real “never-say-die” spirit, Alan then bent the wire to form a noose, which he suspended from an  overhead beam.  He stood on a chair, slipped his head into the noose and jumped into eternity, or would have except the wire was too thin to support his weight. It snapped under the tension, and Alan landed on his butt.  Still not deterred Alan then broke the gas pipe in his room, laid down next to the open end and breathed deeply for several minutes. But even though his tiny house was now filled with toxic fumes, much to Alan’s dismay he was still alive. He grew impatient, and struck a match. 

The resulting explosion blew the roof off his room, and blew out one of the walls. However Alan suffered nothing worse than flash burns.  Whereupon his career as a dead man was cut short because he was convicted of arson and given two years probation, with the requirement that he undergo psychological counseling. Having finally gotten the message that the universe had been so persistently trying to deliver, Alan went into therapy and a year later was described as “cheerful".  

Suicide can best be described as a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And death is rarely - very, very, very, very rarely - a solution to anything.  It is even an ineffective way of punishing the survivors, from those who loved you to those strangers who have to clean up after you. But the one thing abundantly clear, is that no such rational explanation has ever deterred a suicide attempt. It is an irrational act, the product of defective thinking, usually committed under the influence of a drug, usually alcohol,  Amazingly it can often be prevented by the simple and prompt suggestion of,  "Please don't do that." Social engagement, such as asking a person standing on the edge of cliff, "What are you doing?" can often be enough to delay the attempt for a few minutes. And such a delay is called life. 

According to the Taiwan Fortean Times, a pair of lovers in Taiwan took the old adage “…till death do you part…” a little too literally.  

In-laws and out-laws from both families opposed the match of soldier Huang pin-jen and his girlfriend, Chang Shu-mei.  Denied the right to marry but determined to prove their undying love for each other, the couple proved instead that attempted suicide can always reduce love to the level of farce.  They jammed their heads into a single large plastic bag and tied it off at their necks. But the the drugs  (or maybe his/her partner’s breath), induced one of them to nausea, and he/she threw up in the bag,  reducing the level of romance substantially and forcing the other to choose life over humiliation.  The partner clawed their way out of the vile bag, inadvertently rescuing their companion at the same time. How disappointing.

The devoted lunatics then tried to drive off a gorge along the Central Cross-Island Highway,  If they survived the crash, they would surely drown in the river far below.  But they missed the river and landed instead in a cushion of trees and bushes which left them unfortunately uninjured.

In desperation they checked into the honeymoon suite at the two-star Samantha Hotel in Taipei. (It has since closed). After a romantic last supper they tied bed sheets together to form a pair of nooses, which they then attached to ceiling rods. But they had misjudged the length and weight of their suicide pact. When they jumped from their chairs, instead of dangling by the neck,  they landed on their feet and broke through the ceiling of the room below.

Luckily for them, the crackerjack staff of the Samantha Hotel failed to promptly notice the wrecked ceiling. So the lovebirds had time to rethink their methodology.  They decided to use the gas powered fireplace to put a coda on their love pact. They fed several coins into the pay as you go unit, turned the flames up to full and then blew them out. They quickly passed out from the toxic fumes, However, their cost consciousness proved the undoing of their undoing, and the timer on the gas jets ran out before the lovebird's numbers came up. They awoke several hours later with splitting headaches.

Finally, in mounting desperation, the lovebirds jumped hand in hand, out the window of their 12th story hotel room.  What could possibly be more romantic than that? It was a beautiful gesture – except it seemed the fates as well as their in-laws were opposed to this death do them part union.  They somehow missed the street, and landed instead on the tin roof of a five story restaurant. They thundered through the roof and crushed a large lobster tank, temporarily freeing dozens of doomed crustaceans, at least those that were not crushed instantly (a bunch of damned unlucky lobsters, if you ask me), and finishing their adventures in insanity by landing on a banquet table.

The lovers suffered numerous fractures and contusions and bruising but were finally stabilized in a stable condition at a local hospital. And when their families heard how dedicated Pin-jen and Shu-mei were to killing each other rather than parting,  both families agreed to accept the match. Which would have been the logical and compassionate solution from the beginning. 

The lesson I take from all of this is that no matter how crappy your life may feel, you can always make it worse by trying to kill yourself. Don't be an idiot. Stick around and be miserable, like the rest of us. It's only fair.

- 30 -

"The Book of Bunny Suicides" (2003) originated in the twisted mind of Andy Riley

FINDING OUR WAY with a Small Brain

I believe we will create a better world, – probably.  Call me a “depressed optimist”.  Case in point;  researchers of the 3 inch fossil Fuxianhuia protensa, (above) - English pronunciation "Fuk-swe-on-wea-pro-ten-sant" -  suggest that half a billion years ago these little buggies suffered a glitch during sexual reproduction, and begot a double genetic pairing in their proto-brains. This “double dose” of mental DNA strands gave rise to higher brain functions.  Evidently, it also gave rise to crazy.

As one brainiac involved in this study put it, “The price of higher intelligence and more complex behaviors is more mental illness.” What this implies is that whether you are studying religion or astronomy, Descartes or Deuteronomy, you are ingesting a degree of irrationality right along with any knowledge you acquire. 

The ability to use fire allowed us to break down meat proteins, but that also bestows the ability to burn down the house you live in. And we do it all the time – ask any Trump devotee.  Music or mythology, Einstein or astrology, nothing that humans have ever invented could not also be used to nullify humans. Why should the Internet be any different?

Recently, some idiots exploited a “hole” in the Java software system, putting, according to the United States Department of Homeland Security, one billion computers at risk.   In other words, the $8 trillion World Wide Web could be destroyed because somebody found out a way to make 50 cents of profit by blowing up the WWW.

My question is , what kind of idiot would try to make a profit from destroying all future profits?  But the answer is obvious. The same kind of idiots who blew up the world wide economic system in 1929 and again in 2007, and are trying to do it again right now. Bitcoin anyone? The same kind of idiots who are currently running the National Rifle Association, seemingly determined to convince the vast majority of Americans that the terms “gun owner” and “gun nut” are synonymous. As a famous fictional American once said, “Stupid is as stupid does”.

On the plus side, I also recently came across research from South Africa and Sweden, which reveals that the average dung beetle uses GPS in rolling up and away their poop balls. But the G in this GPS does not stand for global, but for galactic. 

I should pause here long enough to thank the lowly dung beetles for their dedication, for it is through their tireless efforts at removing billions of tons of herbivore waste from the surface of the earth that you and I can walk without sinking up to our knees in cow, bison, pig, sheep and moose shit. They bury their carefully gathered and formed poop balls just after laying their eggs in them, to ensure that future generations of dung beetles have a hearty first meal to start their lives. 

We've always known that once the lady beetle gets a nice juicy ball of dung together, they climb on top and do a little dance. Entomologists assumed, that just like the money hungry billionaires, this was a dung beetle's way of saying to the universe “This ball of crap is mine!” 

But now it seems they are actually seeking to orientate themselves so they can find their way back to the burrow they have dug for their balls.  If the sun is up, they use the sun. At night they use the moon. And on moonless nights they use the Milky Way, that smear of billions of stars that runs across the night sky, which nobody ever figured out till now that a dung beetle was even vaguely aware of.

According to Professor Marcus Bryne, from Wits University in Johannesburg, “The dung beetles don't care which direction they're going in; they just need to get away from the big fight with the other beetles at the poo pile (above).”   Don't we all.

And, you know, there appears to be a lesson here, on the relationship between Newtonian and Quantum physics. The beetles can use the Milky Way to define a straight line back to their burrows, because they are so small, and the Milky Way is so far away. 

However, a moth, using the same basic methodology, circles a porch light because they are bigger and closer to the light source. The moths think they are flying in a straight line, as long as they keep the light at an equal distance.  Sort of like cult members and Red Sox fans.  Or bundles of energy we call neutrons locked in shell around a nucleus.     

Or like a human driving down the interstate highway between Houston and Beaumont, Texas. It feels like an endless straight dull line, and it is. But it's a straight line drawn on a sphere, so it ain't straight.  Or to put it another way; the closer you get to an individual problem, the easier it is to become blinded  as to what the problem you are actually dealing with, is

But to get back to my original example, Fuxianhuia protensa - this little proto-bugy has been described as a “missing link”, or more accurately as “a mistaken link”. The problem is the little multi-legged creature, which an average human would have thoughtlessly stepped  on if they spotted it in their closet, might have been the ancestor of all bugs – all crickets, cockroaches, dung beetles, moths and honey bees. But it also might not.  Or to let Professor Nicholas Strausfeld from the University of Virginia explain it. “There has been a very long debate about the origin of insects,” he says. And that, it seems, explains everything.

See, the grand daddy of all buggies was either a crab or a sea monkey (brine shrimp if you are over the age of twelve). Crabs are crustaceans, and sea monkey's are brachiopods. Crabs have better brains than do sea monkeys. So, ancient sea monkeys were once thought to have evolved into insects, while ancient crabs evolved into everybody else. 

But then along comes Fuxianhuia protensa, with a squiggly body and an organized brain, and a dependable dated age of 520 million years old. And that is old enough to have been the great-great-great-etcettera-granddaddy of both lines of evolution – which means that life got smarter and then found it might be more advantageous to get stupid again, if with fewer legs.

I can dig that..  Every human male comes to realize that women often prefer bastards to nice guys, and young women realize that most men prefer easy girls to smart girls.  As your father or mother might have told you at that point, “Life isn't fair”, and he or she may even have asked you, “If you ever figure out the opposite sex, let me know, will you?” 

To put it in a more gender neutral way, most people reach a point when they suspect that their brains are just getting in the way of their hormones making them happy. And it appears that sometime during the Cambrian period, the squiggly crawly things wiggling across the ocean floor first confronted that basic philosophical conundrum: bigger brains or bigger balls and/or bigger tits? Which way will make me happy?

At that point it now appears that the balls and tits returned to a simpler brain and instant gratification, while the brains tried the deferred reward path. And the amazing thing is, it appears we both ended up in the same place, standing atop a our own pile of dung and looking to the Milky Way for answers to the Universe and everything or at least the chance to get laid, which is usually the same thing.

It's enough to make anybody a depressed optimist.

- 30 -