PETER BUFFA -- Comments & Curiosities

Strange business, eh? “April Fools’ Day.”

Saturday will bring, as always, lot of nonsense -- some simple, some

complex -- celebrating what? You tell me. I don’t get it.

Who started this thing anyway? Well, it was the French, if you must know.

It all started in 16th century France. At the time, April 1 was

considered the start of the New Year. Until 1562, that is, when Pope

Gregory introduced the calendar we follow to this day. He summoned

everyone from hither and yon and said, “Listen up. You remember how we

used to do New Year’s on April 1?”

“Yes, sir,” they answered.

“I’m bored with that. From now on, it’s January 1. Any questions?”

“No, sir,” they said. Then everyone cheered.

But, as always happens, some people didn’t get the word, and continued to

celebrate New Year’s Day on April 1, wild parties and all. Their

neighbors ridiculed and taunted them, sending them on wild goose chases

or making up stories about terrible things happening next door or in the

next village.

“April Fools!” the neighbors called them, with all the rudeness and

contempt they could muster. The descendants of those neighbors, by the

way, are what we call “waiters” in Paris today.

In more recent times, French children go to great lengths on April 1 to

secretly tape a paper fish onto their friends’ backs. When the victim

discovers the trick, everyone yells o7 “Poisson d’Avril!”f7 which

means, “Poison Advil.” Just kidding. It means “April Fish.” Get it? One

kid gets stuck with the paper fish, everyone else screams o7 “Poisson

d’Avril!”f7

I guess you have to be there.

So much for origins. The question is, how did an obscure French custom

jump across the big pond to our place? I have no idea.

I must say, some April Fools’ pranks are very clever, if not ingenious.

For the past few years, “Discover” magazine, a science journal, has run a

false, but very straight-faced, story on or around April 1. Last year’s

hoax was about “Albert Manque,” a French physicist.

Physicists spend a lot of time thinking deep thoughts about subatomic

particles that might reveal the building blocks of the universe. More

than a few Nobel Prizes have been awarded to researchers who have

discovered unimaginably small particles, which always seem to get odd

names like “gluon” or “muon.”

The problem is, they are very hard to detect and can only be captured for

a few millionths of a second. Supposedly, Manque and his colleagues

discovered an extraordinarily fundamental particle.

Unlike gluon and muon, which are infinitesimally small, the Manque

particle was about the size of a bowling ball. In fact, it shattered a

nearby computer screen when it burst out of the device that captured it.

Given that we’re dealing with physicists here, the hoax didn’t last long.

But holidays and customs are rarely bound by logic, and occasionally, are

just plain nuts.

Joseph’s Day in March is a notable day for Italians like myself. Special

loaves of bread are made for St. Joseph’s Day and exchanged as gifts,

often accompanied by a few oranges. So far, so good. A quiet, respectful

holiday that everyone can enjoy.

In a few towns in Italy, however, people decided long ago that St.

Joseph’s Day needed a little spicing up. The whole town turns out for a

street festival wherein people dress up in wildly colored costumes and

throw oranges at each other.

You mean, like you toss an orange to someone and then they toss their

orange to you in a charming, lighthearted gesture? Um, no.

I mean people take a full windup like Roger Clemens with two outs and

nobody on, and hurl that thing as hard as they can at the nearest head.

Every year, a few people are hurt -- usually eye injuries -- and this

year, two people were seriously hurt.

Now, maybe it’s just me, but I would think that after three or four

hundred years, someone would have said, “Know what? These things really

hurt.” Maybe not. How about papier-mache oranges or orange-shaped

biscuits? Wouldn’t that be just as much fun and much less head trauma? I

guess not.

That brings us to the granddaddy of bizarre customs -- thank you Ernest

Hemingway -- the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.

The o7 encierof7 , or running of the bulls, is part of the Fiesta of

San Fermin, which runs July 7-14. Each morning, hordes of revelers,

mostly young men, gather at one end of a half-mile-long barricaded

“chute” that leads from a stockade to a bull ring. They receive a

blessing, then sing a traditional song asking St. Fermin to protect them

from the bulls, who are anxious to do whatever they can to let them meet

St. Fermin personally.

At the stroke of 8 o’clock, a skyrocket signals the start of the “race.”

A herd of charging, snorting, 1,000-pound bulls is released into the

chute and it’s every man, and bull, for himself.

The part the bulls really like is when runners inevitably start tripping

over each other, which creates a giant traffic jam in the chute. At that

point, the bulls quickly catch up with the people stuck at the back of

the jam and let them know how much they hate getting up early for this

nonsense.

Amazingly enough, only a few runners in the El Toro 1K have gone on to

the great bull ring in the sky over the years, though the fact that the

revelers have been drinking around the clock before they stumble inside

the chute must have something to do with it.

Hemingway was right. Could there be anything more romantic? I don’t see

how.

So there you have it. An April Fools’ primer. On balance, I guess we get

off pretty easy. A few practical jokes, the obligatory news story about

some outrageous prank somewhere -- pretty harmless stuff.

Just smile and play along. If you want to try something different this

year, try yelling “Poison Advil” at people. Couldn’t hurt.

I gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Fridays. He

can be reached via e-mail at o7 [email protected] .