Eireann go Barf

All is quiet in the streets of Pittsburgh. Suddenly, the entire Irish populace rises as one man, spills out of beer halls and taverns, and staggers through the streets singing songs in fractured Gaelic, and throwing beer bottles against brick walls. St. Patrick's Day? No -- just another Saturday night in the Burgh. But it's just such politically-incorrect behavior, supposedly a discredit to the Irish race, that is part of the fascinating fabric of this city. And normally -- let's say, 51 weeks of the year, it's tolerated. Make that 51 weeks and 6 days. But on that seventh day, the day of the Big Parade, the city fathers promise to keep the lid on the restless natives so that the parade and attendant festivities can be more of a "family event" than an occasion for drunken revelry and waking up the next morning in a pool of one's own filth. In other words, the goal is to sanitize, which seems commendable enough, but I've seen what that sort of thing can do to other festivals and observances. Call it the "Disney Worldization" of ethnic festivities. I mean, could Mardi Gras in New Orleans survive "sanitizing"? How about the Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco (or anywhere else)? I think we have lost touch, to some extent, with the fine old custom of having an All Fools' Day when people really could do pretty much as they damn pleased, and thus let off steam and get rid of some of the resentments they were harboring for shabby treatment the rest of the year. The problem now is that, in a sense, _every_ day is an All Fools' Day. It's hardly a distinction appertaining to one day a year any longer. What people want -- what they long for -- is _contrast_. (The anthropological interpretation of this concept is epitomized in the classic work, "The Sacred and the Profane", by Mircea Eliade.) We are at risk of a great grayness -- a life with no real holidays, no "sabbaths" -- to provide contrast and context. As the eye must keep moving in order to see, the mind/heart/soul must be presented, on a frequent and regular -- preferably cyclic -- basis with primordial concepts -- "This, and not that" -- things intimately tied to a certain place and a certain time, and to ceremonies, rituals, and -- yes -- opportunities for penitence and reconciliation. When we blend all of our experiences into the same great soup, and then wonder why a life which ought to be good -- because it is superficially prosperous and reasonably secure -- is boring and uninspiring, we should look to what it is we celebrate and how we celebrate it.