Call That Bluff!
Apr. 4th, 2007 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogBy far, my favorite segment each week on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is the Bluff The Listener feature. This is the only segment of the show not ad-libbed by the three panelists; one is randomly assigned the "true" weird story of the week, while the other two are given a couple of days to prepare a plausible-sounding riff on the general idea of the topic with similar-sounding fakery.
In that spirit, I offer this week a game Carl Kasell would call
There's Got to Be a Morning After....The Resurrection.
Since I can't round up actual comedians for this task, I'll narrate three separate stories of a post-Easter celebration distinctive for being celebrated in Buffalo, New York and perhaps nowhere else. Your job is to vote for the one you believe to be the real story. If you're a native and you know, DO NOT VOTE, but feel free to express yourself in the comments (and virgin voters should obviously not check out the comments before making your choice).
Ready?
"Anything He could do, She could do better," is the motto of the Our Lady of Fatima National Shrine in nearby Lewiston, New York. The resident Barnabite brothers have operated this shrine to the Blessed Virgin, modeled on the famous Portugeuse shrine of the same name, since the early 1950s, but Marian scholars and groupies have been making an annual pilgrimage to the 15-acre site since Easter of 1979, when an image of the Mother of God was definitively identified in a reflection of headlamps from a now-venerated 1976 Ford Mustang II coupe that had been left with its lights on all weekend.
Brother Benedict M. Postoli, leader of the Barnabite order, said the annual celebration was an attempt by the Church to step even further away from the secularization of the Easter holiday, by emphasizing the inclusive nature of the Blessed Virgin's role in both the Passion and Resurrection. "He was born without sin; so was She. He ascended into Heaven; so did She. We need a day to remember that Jesus was more than just a man; He was, as Mary herself would have put it, 'My Son, the Savior.'"
Seminars are devoted to Mary's life, role as intercessor and model for modern-day women. Yet the day's events are never complete without the traditional Lenten fast-breaking with the immensely popular sandwiches served by the locally famous caterers, Chiavetta's Barbecue: lines for their signature BVM BLT's have been known to stretch all the way to the border of the neighboring state park facility at Artpark.
----
After-Easter festivities will take a particularly nautical turn this year as Polish-American dignitaries climb aboard the Edward M. Cotter, the oldest working fireboat in the country, to shoot off the world's largest Dyngus Day water pistol. Buffalo has, for decades, been unique among the cities of North America in its observance of this pastoral post-Easter tradition from Poland.
According to a 19th century Polish encyclopedia, the word dyngus comes from the medieval “dingnus,” meanings worthy, proper or suitable.
Buffalo’s Dyngus Day was established in 1961 by the late Theodore V. Mikoll, a Buffalo lawyer who led the Chopin Singing Society for 28 years. He recalled that during his childhood, girls would celebrate the end of Lenten fasting by swatting boys with pussy willows — dyngus is the Polish word for these switches — and the boys would spray water on the girls.
Mikoll figured people still would welcome an excuse to escape the Lenten confines with music and beer, and before long the Chopin Singing Society on Kosciuszko Street was the place to be the day after Easter. Nowadays, Dyngus Day tends to find itself celebrated more in suburban beer halls and, now, on the about-to-be-refrozen shores of Lake Erie as men tear down trees in search of a pussy willow big enough to match.
----
Unable to beat the competition, dental professionals from the Buffalo-based Eighth District Dental Society have announced a new marketing campaign that tries to work with the Easter Bunny rather than defeating him.
Dr. David Bonnevie, Eighth District president, unveiled the new seasonal mascots at ceremonies at Squire Hall on the University of Buffalo South Campus earlier this week. Brushy the Beaver and Flossie the Ferret, through inserts in local Weekly Reader editions and soon-to-be-unleased YouTube videos, portray the hippity-hopping merchant of chocolate as their friend rather than their foe. "We can't beat him," Bonnevie said, "so we'll just try to get in there as soon as we can after he's finished." The ads will contain coupons for free dental floss and interdental stimulators, redeemable at local Tops and Wegmans stores, and local Regal cinemas have offered after-Easter preview time for their newly produced action video, "Brushy and Flossy versus Calculus Man."
----
So. Which witch is which?
[Poll #960594]
In that spirit, I offer this week a game Carl Kasell would call
There's Got to Be a Morning After....The Resurrection.
Since I can't round up actual comedians for this task, I'll narrate three separate stories of a post-Easter celebration distinctive for being celebrated in Buffalo, New York and perhaps nowhere else. Your job is to vote for the one you believe to be the real story. If you're a native and you know, DO NOT VOTE, but feel free to express yourself in the comments (and virgin voters should obviously not check out the comments before making your choice).
Ready?
"Anything He could do, She could do better," is the motto of the Our Lady of Fatima National Shrine in nearby Lewiston, New York. The resident Barnabite brothers have operated this shrine to the Blessed Virgin, modeled on the famous Portugeuse shrine of the same name, since the early 1950s, but Marian scholars and groupies have been making an annual pilgrimage to the 15-acre site since Easter of 1979, when an image of the Mother of God was definitively identified in a reflection of headlamps from a now-venerated 1976 Ford Mustang II coupe that had been left with its lights on all weekend.
Brother Benedict M. Postoli, leader of the Barnabite order, said the annual celebration was an attempt by the Church to step even further away from the secularization of the Easter holiday, by emphasizing the inclusive nature of the Blessed Virgin's role in both the Passion and Resurrection. "He was born without sin; so was She. He ascended into Heaven; so did She. We need a day to remember that Jesus was more than just a man; He was, as Mary herself would have put it, 'My Son, the Savior.'"
Seminars are devoted to Mary's life, role as intercessor and model for modern-day women. Yet the day's events are never complete without the traditional Lenten fast-breaking with the immensely popular sandwiches served by the locally famous caterers, Chiavetta's Barbecue: lines for their signature BVM BLT's have been known to stretch all the way to the border of the neighboring state park facility at Artpark.
----
After-Easter festivities will take a particularly nautical turn this year as Polish-American dignitaries climb aboard the Edward M. Cotter, the oldest working fireboat in the country, to shoot off the world's largest Dyngus Day water pistol. Buffalo has, for decades, been unique among the cities of North America in its observance of this pastoral post-Easter tradition from Poland.
According to a 19th century Polish encyclopedia, the word dyngus comes from the medieval “dingnus,” meanings worthy, proper or suitable.
Buffalo’s Dyngus Day was established in 1961 by the late Theodore V. Mikoll, a Buffalo lawyer who led the Chopin Singing Society for 28 years. He recalled that during his childhood, girls would celebrate the end of Lenten fasting by swatting boys with pussy willows — dyngus is the Polish word for these switches — and the boys would spray water on the girls.
Mikoll figured people still would welcome an excuse to escape the Lenten confines with music and beer, and before long the Chopin Singing Society on Kosciuszko Street was the place to be the day after Easter. Nowadays, Dyngus Day tends to find itself celebrated more in suburban beer halls and, now, on the about-to-be-refrozen shores of Lake Erie as men tear down trees in search of a pussy willow big enough to match.
----
Unable to beat the competition, dental professionals from the Buffalo-based Eighth District Dental Society have announced a new marketing campaign that tries to work with the Easter Bunny rather than defeating him.
Dr. David Bonnevie, Eighth District president, unveiled the new seasonal mascots at ceremonies at Squire Hall on the University of Buffalo South Campus earlier this week. Brushy the Beaver and Flossie the Ferret, through inserts in local Weekly Reader editions and soon-to-be-unleased YouTube videos, portray the hippity-hopping merchant of chocolate as their friend rather than their foe. "We can't beat him," Bonnevie said, "so we'll just try to get in there as soon as we can after he's finished." The ads will contain coupons for free dental floss and interdental stimulators, redeemable at local Tops and Wegmans stores, and local Regal cinemas have offered after-Easter preview time for their newly produced action video, "Brushy and Flossy versus Calculus Man."
----
So. Which witch is which?
[Poll #960594]
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 12:05 pm (UTC)