Burrow into the festivities
Today: Joe MacLeod, Creative Director at INDIGNITY and author of the column MR. WRONG.
Issue No. 249
Another Groundhog Day
Joe MacLeod
Another Groundhog Day
by Joe MacLeod
Recently here in America we had Groundhog Day, February 2, which is a quasi-holiday-type thing I always feel compelled to reflect upon, because it is dopey, and on a certain level, I appreciate it. The whole idea is, if a Groundhog sees its shadow on February 2, then we will have another six weeks of Winter. So this year some Groundhogs—there’s bunches of ’em, along with other animals forecasting the weather—supposedly saw their shadows, which means winter will last until March 18, which is two days before the official calendar-science date of March 20, which is the Spring Equinox.
I enjoyed the famous major motion picture Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, which is all about [SPOILER ALERT] how a bad person, played by Bill Murray, becomes a good person by being trapped in the relentless repetition of a single day, thereby eventually achieving enlightenment, and through that, some happiness, but the more you think about that flick, the more nightmarish it is, because everyone else in the story—the entire population of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania—is trapped along with Bill Murray in his doom loop. They’re all already nice people, but they get day after day of being forced to share existence with this a-hole. I might be overthinking it because I’ve seen it too many times. There's a Cable TV channel that shows it on loop on the big day.
Keep us breathing fire!
For $3/month you can read this whole post and get our weekdaily newsletter too!