My three calenders

For my week-by-week desk calender through 2012, I will rely on an unflashy but serviceable volume from American Express. As with last year's calender, there are factual tidbits on each page about various destinations where I can presumably enjoy a debt-financed vacation with my Amex card. One of the early pages tells me, for example, with reference to Kauai, Hawaii, that a native of Kauai was "the only royal-born person ever elected to the U.S. Congress."  Prince Jonah Huhio Kalanianaole served as a delegate to Congress from the then-Territory of Hawaii from 1903 to 1922.

This year's Amex calender doesn't have the "30 years ago this week" feature that last year's did. I wonder why they axed it?  I would imagine that 1982 was at least as interesting a year, week-to-week, that 1981 was.

Maybe they simply realized that I can always check out 30-years events at websites like this: CED Magic. 

Separately, my month-by-month calender for the coming year, from Universe Publishing, provides me with classic illustrations from the career of Tintin, now the protagonist of a Spielberg movie.  The movie has been in the works for a long time, apparently since soon after the death of Tintin's creator, Hergé, in 1983. At one time it was to be a Universal/Paramount partnership, but Universal pulled out, and the movie now in theatres comes to us from Paramout and Sony. Personally, I hope it proves to be a long and successful franchise. It seems to give Spielberg a good excuse to revert to his Indiana-Jones phase.

Finally, for the day-to-day or "box" calender on the top of my dresser, I am done with "non sequitur" and have propped up a box consisting of one witticism a day from Johnny Carson, in the glory days of the Tonight Show.

Out with the old, in with the new!  

My three calenders

For my week-by-week desk calender through 2011, I will be relying on an unflashy but serviceable item from American Express, with factual tidbits on each page about various destinations where I could presumably enjoy a debt-financed vacation with my Amex card. It tells me with referemce, for example, to French Polynesia that the "views from Moorea's Belvedere Lookout are among the most spectacular in the South Pacific." Those views encompass two famous bays -- one named for Capt. Cook, the other not. But it is the one that is not named Cook's Bay (named, rather, Opunohu Bay) where Cook in fact landed. So it says here.

That reminds me a bit of the tricky American history question, "On what hill did the battle of Bunker Hill take place?"

This desk calender alson has a neat "thirty years ago this week" feature on every page, so I can keep track of what was happening in 1981.

Separately, my month-by-month calender for the coming year, from Dr. Seuss Enterprises, provides me with 13 Seussian illustrations. This is one of those so-called 16-month calenders, in which the last four months of the outgoing year have to share one page before one gets to the usual month-per-page stuff: hence the 13 illustrations. Why is that necessary? I need one calender a year anyway -- why does anyone think I need four months worth of quarter-page overlap?

The oldest illustration is for the month of July. It's from Horton Hears a Who, a 1954 publication.

Finally, for the day--by-day calender on the top of my dresser, I will this coming year be relying on "non sequitur" to get me through MMXI. Enough with the Latin phrases.

Out with the old, in with the new!

My three calenders

For my week-by-week desk calender through 2010, I will be relying on a beauty with a Stephen King theme. Among its attractions, there is a #3D cover image of a lengthy passage between two lines of hedges. Wholesome enough: unless you tilt the calender a bit, at which point you can see a bloody croquet mallet on the ground at the front of the path. Inside, you can find such tidbits as this: Feb. 9, 1985, was the day the Bangor (Maine) Daily News printed a story revealing that King was the real author behind the pseudonym "Richard Bachman."

My month-by-month wall calender for the coming year, from "Silver Lining," has a World War II history theme. You have to love Silver Lining, if only for their boast that they have "the best selection of calenders in the known universe". On the page for January, we learn for example that it was on January 2, 1940, that Red Army forces launched a major offensive against Finnish positions on the Karelian Isthmus.

Finally, for the day-by-day calender on top of my dresser, I will this coming year be relying on: "Latin: 365 Phrases with Phonetics and English Translations" to get me through MMX.

I thought you'd want to know. You're welcome.

Passover

For those who've wondered (as I have) why there is sometimes a large gap between the Christian celebration of Easter and the Jewish Passover, why there is sometimes no gap at all: here's an introduction to the Jewish calender.

In New Testament terms, one would expect the two feasts to coincide. After all, the Last Supper was clearly a seder.

The 'normal' year in a Jewish calender has 354 days, which means it gets out of synch with the solar rhythms rather quickly, and this is remedied by the creation of a "leap month" at regular intervals. In other words, the days of the month are regulated by the moon, while the number of months in the year is regulated by the sun. There's a long year, with the leap month, sometimes after two normal years, sometimes after three.

I speak as someone just stumbling his way through this material, and would be happy to receive correction.

At any rate, Passover 2007 (or in the Jewish year 5767) took place on April 2 in the civil calender. Everything was as it 'should be' for those of us who enjoy seeing the two feasts coincide -- because Easter in 2007 was the following Sunday, April 8.

Passover 2008/5768 has been deferred, in Gregorian-calender terms, by the insertion of that extra month. This year, Passover begins when the sun sets April 19.