It's Easter, and with all that is sacred about the season, we offer something profane, or at least silly: our favorite joke about Easter in general, Holy Thursday in particular.
Yes, we bring it up every year, or most years. It's alright, it's an eternal joke.
You can see it by searching for "Easter joke" in the inquiry field on the top left of this page.
Have a nice holiday, and no hamburgers tomorrow.
Amy Goodman, the foremost journalist in America, will speak at Ithaca College on Sunday 24 March.
It's been a few years since Amy was here, and last time security tried to close the building for the crowds. Instead Amy induced them to let everyone in, even if they had to sit on the stage. (They did, and they did.)
Tomorrow should be less crowded, with schools in spring break, but not that much less. You'll want to get there early. The talk is at 8 p.m. in the Park Center.
As a kid I was confused by the biblical saying, "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." Of course it is, I reckoned, unless you were cursing the darkness because you couldn't find the candles. It didn't strike me as much of an injunction.
Maturity taught me the real story, that it simply means you shouldn't complain about things, but find ways to make things better. This all came to me recently as I washed dishes to music from a CD.
I don't mind housework, but dirty dishes is just one of those things, it seems like a punishment for having cooked and eaten well. I could unfreeze pizza and not have to work afterwards. But try to do right, and cook creatively with fresh ingredients, and at the end of it rather than be happy and satisfied, you have to stand up and wash things while looking at a wall. That is some darkness to curse, isn't it?
The other dissatisfaction of my home life is that I never listen to music. I love music, but I'm almost never home, and when I am, I'm either reading, writing, or sleeping, none of which go with paying attention to music.
You don't have to be a theologian to see where this is going, right? I got the idea to bring the little boom box from the west wing of my apartment to the kitchen, in the east wing, 15 feet away, and set it up by the sink. Then I get the Mary Lorson CD I have been meaning to revisit. Turn it on loud enough to overcome the faucet, and start washing dishes, in mindless motion, while full attention is turned to Ms. Lorson's excellent rendering of "I Don't Care," by Eva Tanguay, and her own collection of lovely tunes.
Candle lit. No bad feelings. Thumbs up for a solid injunction, and the maturity to understand and improve things. Where to turn one's attention next? World peace? Hydrofracking? Dust-busting?
In a move that should probably be illegal, our friends at Maxie's restaurant are having free whiskey tastings this Sunday to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.
Finger Lakes Distillers are the co-conspirators. There will also be half-price oysters from the raw bar from 4 - 6 p.m.
As if this is not enough entrapment, there is also free music. No doubt there will also be plenty of verbalizing of talk.
The menu will also feature corned beef reubens, and a house special dessert free with dinner. Maxie's is crazy.The Irish band Solas, longtime Ithaca favorites, return in time for St. Patrick's Day for a mutli-media show at Cornell's Willard Straight Cinema.
"Shamrock City" is a live-music show with visual media. It tells the story of the great-grandfather of Seamus Egan, Solas's leader, who came to America as a young man to work as a miner in Montana, and traveled as a bare-knuckle prizefighter. His hard-scrabble life (and early, mysterious death) dramatize the plight of the Irish immigrants who fled famine at home to find violence, discrimination and poverty here.
The show is at 7:30 on Wednesday 13 March. Tickets and information are available at the website for Dan Smalls Productions.
