Alien/s Day (April 26)

LV426 (hence, April 26) is the original name of Acheron, a moon 39 light years from Earth. Though having no indigenous inhabitants, Acheron eventually came to house a human colony and a species of vicious aliens …who would repeatedly get their asses handed to them by Ellen Ripley. 

 

How to Commemorate:

• Use a forklift. 
• Shave your head. 
• Watch the movies.
• Get a pair of Ripley’s alien-crushing shoes (special release by Reebok).

The Perfect Date (April 25)

Today is widely recognized as the perfect date (courtesy of Miss Congeniality) because it is "not too hot, not too cold, all you need is a light jacket."

How to Commemorate:

• Go on a date.
• Go outside.
• Wear a light jacket.
• Be congenial and smile big.

Neve and Blue listen to the dead in a churchyard. (St. Mark's Eve, April 24)

"For most people, St. Mark's Day came and went without note.  It wasn't a school holiday. No presents were exchanged.  There were no costumes or festivals. There were no St. Mark's Day sales, no St. Mark's Day cards in the store racks, no special television programs that aired only once a year.  No one marked April 25 on their calendar.  In fact, most of the living were unaware that St. Mark even had a day named in his honor.

But the dead remembered."

In this amazing book (number one in a series!), a family of psychics traditionally spends St. Mark's Eve in a graveyard, listening to the voices of people who will die in the coming year in their town.  Blue--who is the only non-psychic in the family--is delegated to note-taker ...until this one St. Mark's Eve when she alone can hear the voice of a particular boy from the local prep school.

Seriously, this series is incredible. Go read it now!

How to Commemorate

• Sit in a graveyard at night, listening for the dead. 
• Wear raven insignia (Ravenclaw will suffice, if you must).
• Get a tarot card reading. Or read them for other, you know, if you're psychic.

 Amazon     Public Libraries

 

Nothing happened, and it keeps happening. Or, everything happens at once. (22 April)

There are points in time that cannot be changed no matter how we try to avoid them. Once such fixed point was the death of The Doctor at Lake Silencio on April 22, 2011, (S6E13) but by choosing not to end his life, River Song caused a temporal paradox. When asked, later, to explain what happened, The Doctor said this:
"Nothing happened. And then it kept happening. Or, if you prefer, everything happened at once, and it won't ever stop. Time is dying. It's going to be 5:02 in the afternoon for all eternity. A needle stuck on a record." 

How to Commemorate

• Dress in space clothes.
• Visit a lake and have a picnic (preferably, don't let someone die).
• Wear a cowboy hat.
• Use anachronisms. (Light a candle to see your laptop keyboard. Navigate to a historical marker by using GPS. Make a phone call from your smartphone.)

Thrain sets out to retake Erebor (April 21)

After Smaug evicted the dwarves from their home of Erebor, orcs later moved in and claimed the Lonely Mountain for their own. Thrain could not bear this, so he set out to retake Erebor on April 21st, leading the beginning of the war between orcs and dwarves.
How to Commemorate:

• Retake something of your own.
• Visit a mountain.
• Later, go missing.

Alcatraz infiltrates a library and breaks everything.

Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson is the sort of book that is super terrific but you have trouble explaining to your friends.  Here is the blurb from Sanderson’s website.  

 

On his 13th birthday, Alcatraz, a foster child, gets a bag of sand in the mail which purports to be his “inheritance” sent from his father and mother. The Librarians, of course, immediately steal the bag of sand from him. This sparks a chain of events which leads Alcatraz to realize that his family is part of a group of freedom fighters who resist the Evil Librarians—the secret cult who actually rule the world. Alcatraz’s grandfather shows up and tows him off to infiltrate the downtown library to steal back the mystical bag of sand. The ensuing story involves talking dinosaurs, sentient romance novels, and a dungeon-like labyrinth hiding beneath the innocent-looking downtown library.

 

Why I love this book:

• It’s hilarious and creative.
• Eyeglasses play a prominent role in the story, and they are my favorite symbol in literature.
• The role reversal of having librarians that are evil is so, just, totally opposite from what we really are. Really.

How to Commemorate: 

• Visit a library
• Break/destroy something (it's a superpower)
• Arrive late for something (it's also a superpower)
• Dance badly (yep, still a superpower)
• Name something after a prison (because... well, you'll find out)

Gandalf goes to the library at Minas Tirith

Celebrating National Library Week, here is one in a series about how a library changed a fictional world.

In The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf suspects that Bilbo’s handy invisibility ring is in fact the (gasp!) Ring of Power worn by Sauron who used it to almost conquered Middle Earth.  But Gandalf wants to be sure.  So, like a good wizard, he does his research.  He goes to the library.

Gandalf leaves Frodo to find out about the ring and returns nine years later (in the book).  (In the movie he returns in time to miss all the action and just catch up with the hobbits in Rivendell.) During those nine years of researching, he eventually winds up in the archives at Minas Tirith (aka the White City, the one with the very epic battle in the final movie).  Denethor begrudgingly gives Gandalf access to the scrolls and books, and that, my friends, is where Gandalf learns the world-changing truth in Isildore’s description of the Ring. The library!

When I watch the movie version, my librarian heart shares the thrill of research to see Gandalf in the archive, but my librarian heart also quavers because he is smoking his pipe in there. Smoking! Next to all the paper!!

Anyway, just think--proper Library Science could have saved Middle Earth!  Well... sooner.

How to Commemorate:

• Visit a library.
• Wear an extra ring.
• Stroke prized possessions, calling them "My Precious"