The Cruelest Month & the
Wasteful Land of Hoaxers

April is here again, and that may be one of the few things you may be sure about its first day. Yes, it’s high time for jokesters of all stripes, including the miserable kind old Eliot may have alluded to in his epic. So all we can say is, be mindful out there today.
For in college dorms and at offices across the land, misguided tricksters may be tempting serious injury, and who can trust the sense of humor of digital avatars, these days. Better tread with caution, weary traveler, for no amount of solemnity may mend a catastrophic mishap.
On the other (sleight of) hand, though, we just can’t wait to see what will be the dominant hoax of the day, and, slow as we are, how long we’ll take to realize, hopefully in time, our endless gullibility. Lacking any insights to add, we’re republishing our 2012 post on deceiving and fooling as we saw it then.
May the cleverest and the most benign prevail this Monday, even though we doubt it. As it usually goes, someone always gets hurt, and their fall is the undue wage paid to devilish intent. In other words, we wish it were all fun and games, but the flesh is weak and we may find ourselves laughing at somebody’s expense. Damn us.

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Sleight of Minds

In Leap Years, April Fool’s
Comes a Full Hoax Earlier

Who doesn’t know the expression, don’t fool yourself? And yet, we love to do just that. We go to great lengths pretending we don’t know what we should, and we don’t feel how it hurts. Aches, longings and desire, jealousy, hatred and grief, we’re all great at deceiving our own hearts into believing things can’t be that bad. Yet, they’re usually much worse.
We brag about how far we’ve got, how good we are, how much better is our god. Such gullibility makes the work of hoaxers not just easy, but necessary. So thank your phony stars for another April Fool’s Day, for it may provide respite and restore sanity.
You may fear if it ignites a conspiracy, a collective craze, the hysteric crowd. But those would have happened with or without pranksters. After all, paranoid buffs may believe they’ve uncovered the truth; everybody else is sure there’s no way of knowing it.
It may also look as if we’re a full day ahead of schedule, but in any but a Leap Year, today would be April 1. Which was once celebrated in January, and December, and March 32nd., which even in the 14th century was no longer possible.
So, either way, it’s a day of ambiguity and humor, even when at first you may feel like dismembering anyone who dares to punk you.

THE SHIP OF FOOLS SAILS ON
For some reason, the 20th century was plagued by all sorts of political conspiracy theories that arose from one too many behind-close-doors machinations. Many believe they’re are surely behind (excuse us if we Continue reading →