le reve d'un poisson d'Avril

[truepenny]

I deeply dislike April Fools Day; even knowing its long and fascinating cultural history does not reconcile me to a day that validates the abhorrent practice of practical jokes--especially in modern society where it has been completely divorced from the ideas of Misrule and cultural inversion that once made it meaningful.

However, my subconscious, wayward creature that it is, got into the spirit of the thing. I dreamed last night that Charlotte Brontë wrote Frankenstein.

And that's all the knee-slapping hilarity you can expect out of me today.

Comments

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I also dislike April Fool's Day. I suppose it seems silly, but I always feel betrayed by it, particularly when sources I rely on for news or information put forth falsehoods, and so cunningly that I can't tell if they're lying or not.

I find it very tiresome that there's one day a year I have to assume that everyone is lying to me. :/

[larryhammer]

Which would be a wierd book. Tho' not as weird as if it had been written by Emily Brontë.

---L.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

I think there's a good spec fic story in that concept.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

My daughter and I were killing time in the pharmacy waiting for Amoxicillin. We were reading every magazine on the rack.

Martha Stewart Living had an article on April Fool's Day jokes. And they didn't involve sage-green ribbon, either. The nicest suggested putting an imitation cockroach into somebody's bedroom slippers. Imagine that in the usual lush Martha photographic style.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I share your distaste for April Fool's jokes. I also suspect that Victor Frankenstein is by no means whatsoever a reliable narrator, and the real story as told by someone else would be quite interesting.

[kate_nepveu]

The obvious and creatively goofy April Fool's jokes I don't mind--like Google's today. It's the ones where there's even a smidgen of doubt that I disapprove of.

[libskrat]

I'm actually sneakingly fond of the straight-faced leg-pullers. (The Electronic Frontier Foundation has done some great stuff today along these lines.) Sure, I've been caught once or twice, who hasn't? but one day a year, I can cope.

I don't, however, think that any day is a good excuse for meanspiritedness -- and many practical jokes are utterly meanspirited.

(For one that wasn't, and that still makes me grin, check out how I got fooled last year.)

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

I was trying to comment earlier, but LJ was giving me all kinds of grief....

I'd completely forgotten about April Fish, something I don't think any of my professors adequately explained.

Also, I thought you might like to read about <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/linithiliel/387862.html?nc=5a practical joker getting his comeuppance....</a>

[skalja.livejournal.com]

I like April Fool's, as long as the jokes are done in good fun and with consideration for the potential "victims" - i.e., nothing hurtful or meanspirited. I enjoy April Fooling in newspapers and publications only if one is pre-warned - for instance, today I got the April-Foolish issue of a comic magazine I subscribed to, which said on the cover that there were x number of gags smattered throughout the issue and the first 500 readers to catch them all and mail in the list would get a fun prize, and on the editor's page there was a lot of joking about how this month the magazine was actually more reliable than it usually was, and other sorts of self-poking.

Basically, I guess what I'm saying is that I like April Fool's but can certainly see your perspective.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

"Reader, I marooned him."

[lisekit.livejournal.com]

I was completely thrown one year by The Times of India running an entire front page of April Fool stories. One was using a genuine picture of Chelsea Clinton, visiting at the time, with an adoring-looking young man in the background of the shot just behind her soldier. The caption gave a story about this being some guy from Bangalore currently studying with her at Stanford, who had become her paramour. Inside, the paper explained it was an April Fool, and said they couldn't resist printing something about the picture because the unknown guy had such a soppy look on his face! He did, too....