June 16, 2008
Thank God It’s Not Friday
Do you suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia? I don’t, but I do have a fear that somebody might try to ask me to spell it.
According to David Emery of About.com, paraskevidekatriaphobia (also spelled paraskavedekatriaphobia, if you want to win a bar bet) is the irrational fear of Friday the 13th. I assume he’s referring to the date Friday the 13th and not the movie Friday the 13th. Of course, the movie title is based on the fact that the date Friday the 13th is supposed to be unlucky, which is why a movie titled Tuesday the 10th wouldn’t likely scare anyone or rake in big money at the box office.
The fact is that the day Friday is in itself supposed to be unlucky as is the number 13, ergo putting them together is a double whammy. Sort of like how thunder is scary and lightning is scary but thunder and lightning is even scarier.
One theory of why Friday is considered an unlucky day is that in some pre-Christian pagan religions, Friday was a day of worship and thus when the Church arose, they wanted anything associated with the pagans to have a bad connotation. However, in pagan Rome, Friday was execution day so I’m guessing the condemned pretty much thought of it as an unlucky day already, as well as a lousy way to kick off the weekend.
The number 13 wasn’t considered bad luck by everybody. The ancient Egyptians, that is the Egyptians from way back, not elderly people currently in Egypt, believed life unfolded in 12 stages, with death being the 13th, an eternal afterlife. That was revered and not feared.
Fear of the number 13 is so pervasive in our culture, that some buildings don’t even have a 13th floor. They go right from 12 to 14. This seems illogical. If you’re on the 14th floor, you’re really on the 13th floor and thus, still doomed. You can call the bubonic plague “Pretty-Smelling Rose Syndrome” all you want, but you’re still going to have fever, chills, vomiting, nausea, bloody diarrhea and die.
Another theory holds that in prehistoric goddess-worshipping cultures, the number 13 was revered because it corresponded to the lunar or menstrual cycle and when the patriarchal religions came along, they denigrated any religions that had a “not-so-fresh feeling.”
There’s also the Viking legend of Loki, the Evil One. It’s too long to explain but to sum it up, he became the 13th person at a party by crashing it and someone wound being killed by a thrown spear of mistletoe. I not only learned of this explanation through my research for this column, but I also learned that mistletoe comes in spears. Perhaps one day I’ll hear of someone being killed by myrrh and through my research I’ll discover just what that is.
Religion plays a big part in these superstitions, as you can see. One mention by Mr. Emery is The Knights Templar, made famous by the book/movie The DaVinci Code. The “warrior monks,” which seems like an oxymoron, were formed for the Crusades to combat Islam and as a silent order, presumably counted heavily on the element of surprise.
They became so powerful that popes and kings feared them and conspired to stop them with a mass arrest on Friday, October 13, 1307. The trumped-up charges were never proven although after brutal torture, some “confessed” to the charges and probably whatever else their captors asked them to (waterboarding, anyone?).
Let’s not forget The Last Supper in which Jesus and his 12 Apostles were having a nosh when one of the dinner guests betrayed Jesus, who wound up being crucified on a Friday. I’m assuming you’ve heard about that one, as it was in all the papers.
If you have 13 letters in your name, you have “the devil’s luck.” Noted serial killers Theodore Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, and Albert De Salvo all had 13 letters in their names. You’re counting the letters in your name right now, aren’t you? “Jack the Ripper” is also composed of 13 letters but odds are that “Ripper” isn’t really the family name, just his stage name.
As for me, I don’t consider Friday to be unlucky. That’s when I get my paycheck.
Posted by dmargarita at 7:39 PM
June 2, 2008
Research This!
Many people go out to Hollywood for the same reason: to become famous actors. Famous actors and actresses seem to commit crimes for one reason: research.
The news that Academy Award-winning actress Tatum O’Neal was arrested in New York City for trying to buy crack cocaine, while sad, also has an all-too-familiar ring to it. The actress reportedly told police that she was merely researching a part as a junky, which, these days, seems to be the criminal defense excuse of the stars. I suppose that when she won her Oscar at 10-years-old as a con artist in the movie Paper Moon, she time-traveled back to The Depression to research that role.
You may recall that when actress Winona Ryder was arrested for shoplifting several years ago, she claimed to have been doing research for an upcoming role.
Saks Fifth Avenue employees spotted Ryder stuffing things into her bag and stopped her outside of the store. When the Girl was Interrupted from her stealing binge, she lost her Age of Innocence, and Great Balls of Fire!, risked spending time in prison with several not-so Little Women. Ryder was found guilty of the shoplifting charges, while I’m clearly guilty of not being able to think of better Winona Ryder movies to use for puns.
Rocker Pete Townshend was arrested several years ago on child pornography charges, which caused fans of The Who to reinterpret every Who song, starting with It’s a Boy, (A Side Note: Checking the Internet for “It’s a Boy!” to get my facts right, brought up a site with that title which is described as “a short, friendly summary of the case for not circumcising your son”) right through See Me, Feel Me.
Townshend publicly explained that he visited a child pornography site (but didn’t download anything) as part of his research for an upcoming autobiography. Presumably, he’s not going with his original title “Pete Townshend: My Life With Child Pornography.”
Of course, it’s not uncommon for actors to do research. Most famously, Robert DeNiro put on 50 pounds to play boxer Jake LaMotta for LaMotta’s later years in the movie Raging Bull, rather than wearing a “fat suit” in the film. DeNiro also got in the ring and boxed, a stark contrast from the days before “method acting” when John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart played the same character, themselves, no matter what the film role was. Could you see John Wayne or Humphrey Bogart auditioning for the lead role in Capote?
Let’s assume that DeNiro didn’t actually kill anybody to research any of his roles as a mobster, in films such as Goodfellas or Analyze This.
Actor Harry Hamlin, 1987’s “People’s Sexiest Man Alive!” (Beat me by that much…a tribute to the upcoming Get Smart movie), once told of researching for his part as a gay man for a role in the film Making Love, by hanging out in a gay bar. Hit on by an interested patron, he explained to the guy that he wasn’t really gay but just researching a role. The man replied “You’re the fifth guy to tell me that tonight!”
While Hamlin got a laugh with that story on a talk show, it’s kind of sad to know there’s some guy out there that nobody found attractive.
According to Usmagazine.com, where I usually to go to learn about the important events of the world, O’Neal chronicled her battle with drugs and alcohol in her 2004 memoir A Paper Life and went into rehab in 1996. The American Medical Association has classified alcoholism as a disease, while one could also attribute at least some of Ms. O’Neal’s problems to having been married to ex-tennis star John McEnroe.
So, if you ever see my photo in a newspaper for some reason, remember, I wasn’t really attempting to rob a bank…it was just research.
Posted by dmargarita at 8:27 PM