Friday the 13th, Figgy Pudding, and Bartolus de Saxoferrato

You may recall that triskaidekaphobia means "a morbid fear of the number 13." The Lemming speculates that a great deal depends on what the reader thinks is "morbid" — which, oddly enough, is not what an auctioneer wants when asking for more bids.

If anything, the Lemming thinks we should be afraid that Friday the 13th might not appear. Think of the calamitous consequences, should Thursday the 12th suddenly encounter Saturday the 14th. The force of that impact might dislodge dates, and maybe even figs.

And, speaking of figgy pudding: Why would carolers demand a 16th century English pudding? It would have gone stale by now.

Finally, the Lemming suggests a more broad-minded approach to irrational fears. Why, after all, should one be limited to fearing the the 13th only when it falls on a Friday. Imagine the possibilities if, for example, one were to become obsessed with next month's Sunday the 13th.

It was on July 13, 1357, that Bartolus de Saxoferrato died. This eminent professor of law was, ominously, born in the year 1313. If that's not enough to scare you: well, the Lemming tried, and that's all one do.

Which reminds the Lemming of the Doobie Brothers, and a perdurably persistent Hanna-Barbera cartoon which, oddly enough, actually does include the occasional strangers in the night. Some of which are stranger than others.

Posts, related and otherwise:

• "Friday the 13th, Poetry, and a Rambling Lemming"
  (September 13, 2013)
• "Lemming Tracks: Triskaidekaphobia and a Rambling Lemming"
  (January 13, 2012)
• "Eleven; and Why is Six Afraid of Seven?"
  (November 11, 2011)
• "How to Not Sound Crazy - or - THE PARANOIDS ARE AFTER ME!!!"
  (June 12, 2011)
• "Dutch Statisticians: Friday the 13th is - Lucky?!"
  (June 13, 2008)

Friday the 13th, Poetry, and a Rambling Lemming

First, a public service announcement. Thursday, September 19, is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Ye have been warned! Arrr!

• The Official Talk Like a Pirate Day website
  www.talklikeapirate.com

Paraskevidekatriaphobia and Prismatic Poem Parts

Friday the 13th came on a Tuesday last month, but this time it's the real deal: Friday the 13th, not just the 13th day of the month.

Not that it really matters, except for people prone to paraskevidekatriaphobia, which doesn't have much to do with parasails, although finding two Friday Special sales would be nice.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia doesn't have much to do with parrots, either, and come to think of it someone with paraskevidekatriaphobia probably wouldn't go parasailing today. That long word starting with "p" means "fear of Friday the 13th," which the Lemming doesn't have.

The Lemming doesn't have a parrot, either, or a parasail. This post was supposed to be about something besides Friday the 13th and fearful feelings, which the Lemming does occasionally have: but not about Friday the - - - oh, never mind.

Now, for no particular reason, here's a set of snippets. The Lemming likes this sort of thing. Your experience may vary.

"...And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise."
(Coleridge)

"...Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye...."
(Hughes)

"...'And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away'."
(Shelley)

A Rambling Lemming Ponders Poe's Poem

How, the Lemming asks, could one ponder "many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore?" If the lore is in a volume, it's been set in writing: and can hardly be called "forgotten." Someone might forget where the book is, or how to get to the library, and folks have lost their library cards on occasion: and that's another topic, sort of.

That line is from Poe's cheerful ditty that starts with:

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, -
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door...."

"Cheerful?" What was the Lemming thinking? Never mind.

The Lemming can understand why a person with a propensity for abstruse pursuits might ponder ponderous volumes. That's how some of these posts get started.

A particularly polite person might answer a nocturnal tapping on the door. But when tapping came at the window: What was he thinking?!

Then, to top it all off, he lets the - raven? - in: and has a conversation with it.

The chap must have been particularly lonely. Or something.

For some reason, the Lemming has exhibited a propensity for words beginning with "p:" and that's yet another topic.

Time to stop. The Lemming is pooped from all that pondering.



Almost-related posts:

• "Lemming Tracks: Triskaidekaphobia and a Rambling Lemming"
  (January 13, 2012)
• "Friday the 13th: Leftovers"
  (March 13, 2009)
• "Tomorrow's Friday the 13th: First of Three in 2009"
  (February 12, 2009)
• "Dutch Statisticians: Friday the 13th is - Lucky?!"
  (June 13, 2008)
• "Paraskevidekatriaphobia? Jaw-Breaker of a Word for Fear of Friday the 13th"
  (June 13, 2008)

Lemming Tracks: Triskaidekaphobia and a Rambling Lemming

There's another Friday the 13th coming this year, in July:

• That's six months from now
• There are two numbers in "13"
  • "1" and "3"
• Three multiplied by two is six

You see?! IT ALL FITS TOGETHER!!!

Or, not. The Lemming's been over sounding crazy on the Internet, and how to avoid it, before:

• "How to Not Sound Crazy - or - THE PARANOIDS ARE AFTER ME!!!"
  (June 12, 2011)

On the other hand, the Lemming had an unusually hard time coming up with a topic for today's earlier post ("Oh, Boy! The Avengers are Back - Almost "), which a sufficiently triskaidekaphobic person might think was the result of Friday the 13th already being here, over in Asia, when the Lemming was still rummaging around for something nifty.

"Triskaidekaphobia?" That's a seven-syllable word meaning "a morbid fear of the number 13." (Princeton's WordNet) Oddly enough, seven is a 'lucky' number. ("Is this your lucky number? Seventy-seven things you need to know about 07," Independent.co.uk (December 31, 2006)) Which probably explains the title of "Lucky Number Slevin" (2006).

Related (sort of) posts:

• "Eleven; and Why is Six Afraid of Seven?"
  (November 11, 2011)
• "Tomorrow's Friday the 13th: First of Three in 2009"
  (February 12, 2009)
• "The Neutrinos are Coming! 2012 and Hollywood Science"
  (November 16, 2009)
• "Friday the 13th: The Geek Approach"
  (June 13, 2008)
• "Triskaidekaphobia: More than Friday the 13th"
  (June 13, 2008)

Friday the 13th: Leftovers

As Friday the thirteenth drew to a close, I had some links left over:

• "A Brief History of Friday the 13th"
  Time (February 13, 2009)
• "The Thirteen Club"
  Boston University School of Theology
• "The Code of Hammurabi"
  The Constitution Society

What's the Code of Hammurabi doing there? Look for law #13. It's not there. At all.

Tomorrow's Friday the 13th: First of Three in 2009

The first of three Friday the 13ths in 2009 is coming up tomorrow. That's also the day before Valentine's Day. Maybe there's a connection there, but I'll have to think about it.

Since my Valentine's Day Eve musings may not come up with anything, here's some of what I found out about the lore and legend of Friday the 13th:

• "What's so bad about Friday 13th?"
  The Coffs Coast Advocate (Australia) (February 13, 2009)
  • "N 2009 there will be three Friday the 13th's, bad news for the Paraskevidekatriaphobics (people afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th) out there.
  • "Fear of Friday the 13th is rooted in ancient, separate bad-luck associations with the number 13 and the day Friday. The two unlucky entities combine to make one super unlucky day.
  • "There is a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party at...."
• "Don't fear back to back Friday the 13th"
  Houston Chronicle (February 12, 2009)
  • "If bad economic news hasn't already shredded your nerves, how about this:
  • "Today is Friday the 13th. And we've got another one next month, the first time we've been hit back to back since 1998. And the 2009 calendar is darkened by yet another one in November.
  • "Worried? Blue?
  • "Don't go there, says Donald Dossey, an expert on stress, superstitions and phobias...."
• "Humor: On Feb, Friday 13, 2009 Unix time Will Be 1234567890"
  nixCraft (February 10, 2009)
  • "Unix time (POSIX time) is a system for describing points in time, defined as the number of seconds elapsed since midnight Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of January 1, 1970, not counting leap seconds.
  • "At 11:31:30pm UTC on Feb 13, 2009, Unix time will reach 1,234,567,890...."

I'll let you know if I come up with anything about Friday the 13th and Valentine's Day. Don't count on it, though: I think the notion of a connection has something to do with my wondering if my wife's gift will come in time.

Dutch Statisticians: Friday the 13th is - Lucky?!

" Dutch study shows Friday 13th not more unlucky"
Yahoo! News (June 12, 2008)

"AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Unlucky for some? Dutch statisticians have established that Friday 13th, a date regarded in many countries as inauspicious, is actually safer than an average Friday...."

That's it! No more Friday the 13th posts for at least a month.

That Dutch study was interesting, though.

Friday the 13th: The Geek Approach

"Friday the Thirteenth "
Wolfram Research / scienceworld.Wolfram.com

"The Gregorian calendar follows a pattern of leap years which repeats every 400 years. This is true since the number of days in 400 Gregorian years is

which is an exact number of weeks since it is divisible by 7 (namely, ). There are 4,800 months in 400 years, so ...."

Well, you get the idea.

As a sort of bonus, there's a snippet of Mathematica code that can generate counts for how many times a given weekday occurs.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia? Jaw-Breaker of a Word for Fear of Friday the 13th

"Why Friday the 13th Is Unlucky"
About.com

The first paragraph tells you that this isn't going to be one of those fluffy articles:

"I have before me the abstract of a 1993 study published in the British Medical Journal provocatively titled, 'Is Friday the 13th Bad for Your Health?' With the aim of mapping 'the relation between health, behaviour, and superstition surrounding Friday 13th in the United Kingdom,' its authors compared the ratio of traffic volume to the number of automobile accidents on two different days, Friday the 6th and Friday the 13th, over a period of years."

It's pretty good reading, though, if you want an in-depth look at the psychology, history, and weirdness of Friday the 13. You'll even learn that there are two ways to spell "paraskevidekatriaphobia," and who coined the word.

Triskaidekaphobia: More than Friday the 13th

"TRISKAIDEKAPHOBIA/ˌtrɪskaɪdɛkəˈfəʊbɪə/Help with IPA"
WorldWideWords.org

If you can pronounce triskaidekaphobia, you probably know what it is: fear of the number 13. This short piece discusses triskaidekaphobia, but mostly deals with Friday the 13th.

The author points out that 1998 was a bad year for people who fear Friday the 13: there were 3 of them then.

And, we learn, there are more to come: 2009, 2015, and, yes, 2012.

Easter Eggs: 101 of Them

"The 101 Coolest Easter Eggs Hidden in Your Software, DVDs and Video Games"
IT Security editors (April 3, 2008)

"Photoshop CS2: Merlin Li ... : Hold down both the Alt key and the left mouse button, then move your mouse over Palate Options in the Layers window. Let go of the mouse, and Merlin appears."

to

" 'Dark Castle': Interesting Treat in Main Hall: Go to the Date And Time function under the control panel, and set the date to any Friday the 13th. When you start up the game, you'll see the added effect in the main hall."

Quite a few are fun. At least one is noxious, at best.