Book of Daze

We gather to celebrate disappearing act day, the yearly ritual of slipping sideways into the folds of unreality. The reasons for staging your own disappearance  are many. One is the joy of baffling the audience, leaving them gasping at the empty stage while you sip tea unobserved in the wings.… Read More

Pushing the envelope is as American as baseball, hot dogs, deep-fried Oreos, and elective surgery. It is also not for amateurs. The envelope, it is our duty to tell you, was never meant to be pushed. It was meant to contain things—bills, bad news, wedding invitations, political come-ons, or, occasionally,… Read More

For at least two decades now, adjacency has wormed its way into the public discourse, gnawing holes in it like a caffeinated termite. What used to mean “next to” in a tidy, literal sense now signals a creeping reliance on convenience, the linguistic equivalent of microwaving meaning. Anything close enough… Read More

Let it be known throughout the land that October 25th is Book of Daze: Jitterbug Day, a sacred observance commemorating the only dance that can summon both joy and mild whiplash in a single eight-count. The jitterbug, born in the smoky swing dens of 1930s Harlem, was originally a covert… Read More

At last, a holiday for the emotionally literate and professionally repressed: Unsent Email Day, a sacred observance for all who have typed their truth at 2:00 a.m., hovered over “Send,” and thought better of it. The premise is simple: say what you really mean—then do not. It is a day… Read More

Once a year, the nation celebrates the noble art of literary bluffing. On Pretend You Read Classic Literature Day, ordinary citizens dust off the unread tomes that have been gathering dust since college and carry them into public like fashion accessories for the soul. Nothing says “cultured” like holding War… Read More

A game for the truly resourceful, competitive dumpster diving is the fastest growing sport in America. More demanding than extreme ironing, more elegant than wife carrying, competitive dumpster diving is the true test of agility, nerve, and post-consumer irony. On this day the art of high-end reclamation is elevated to… Read More

In medieval England, bakers often gave their customers thirteen rolls, a baker’s dozen, when the customers had paid for only twelve. This was done out of an excess of caution because British law decreed that merchants who shorted their customers get a public flogging. . Today the only penalty for… Read More

Today we observe Boycott Zach Bryan Day, commemorating the moment when a mediocre and misguided  “country” singer triggered a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press cycle with a stupid lyric and a wounded Instagram “apology.” Bryan’s offending verse—“ICE is gonna come bust down your door / Try and build a… Read More

Read the Instructions First was written by an unemployed Sentient Blender with a Dual Ph.D. in Astrophysics and Italian Literature, and Self-Confidence Issues. The Read the Instructions First Assembly Was a Metaphor and Possibly a Trap The misadventure began, as some great tragedies do, with a box. Inside the box… Read More

Human beings are not the only ones who suffer in silence at the office. On take your emotional supporth houseplant to work, we honor the ficuses and ferns that have been quietly absorbing the psychic fallout of your late-night doom-scrolling and early-morning muttering about meetings that should have been emails.… Read More

Let us raise a chipped jelly-jar glass and remember 1969, that lawless commune of twelve months when mankind went to the Moon, but most of its citizens could not find their car keys. This was the year fashion declared war on good taste and won, when hemlines shot upward, collars… Read More