Yo, Saturnalia!
A friend of mine sent this holiday gem to me recently...
I determined that it dates back to an essay on NPR by Diane Roberts, back in December 2005:
(You may listen at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5060356 )
Enjoy!
What's this empire coming to? Now they want us to stop greeting people
with, `Yo, Saturnalia.' `We have all these different cultures in Rome,'
they tell us. `We shouldn't offend anyone,' they tell us. `We should be
inclusive. We've got the barbarians from the north with their tree
decorations and their fire rituals, and the weirdos from Gaul cutting
mistletoe with a golden sickle, and the Mytherists(ph), the
Zoroastrians, the Isis cults and, of course, those characters That hang
out in the catacombs.' `Hail, winter,' we're supposed to say. I ask you,
what next? We lose the feast? We stop the solstice parties? No more
honoring Ops, goddess of abundance?
I was buying some candles and greenery down by the Forum the other day
and there's old Macrobius with some Visigoth chick, and she goes, `Good
yule.' So I go, `Hey, in this country, we say, "Yo, Saturnalia." Maybe
you should go back from where you came from.' Then Macrobias goes, `She
can't; she's a slave.' Whatever. At this time of year, the Visigoths
sacrifice a pig and burn a special log which they then dance around
instead of acting like normal people and going to the temple of Saturn.
I swear, I was at this party over at Septima Commodia's house the other
day--she always has a Saturnalia party--anyway, she decorated the place
with prickly green leaves. `It's holly,' she said, `the latest fashion
from Britannia. They all do it over in Londinium.'
It gets worse. She had this statue of some goddess from Ultima Thule or
somewhere--name of Frigga--sitting right there on the dining room
mensal. I mean, this is darn near blasphemous. I'd be scared of what the
Lares and Penates would do if I put that thing in my house. But Septima
Commidia just said, `Oh, get over it. We're cosmopolitan around here.'
Cosmopolitan; that's what they call it. Well, by Jupiter, I live in
Latium, I'm a Roman and this empire was founded on the principle that
the gods, our gods, must be honored at the appropriate time and in the
appropriate way. None of this foreign heretical nonsense or these
strange customs from Germania or Hibernia or Palestine. I say, `Yo,
Saturnalia,' and if you don't like it, you can leave.
I determined that it dates back to an essay on NPR by Diane Roberts, back in December 2005:
(You may listen at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5060356 )
Enjoy!
What's this empire coming to? Now they want us to stop greeting people
with, `Yo, Saturnalia.' `We have all these different cultures in Rome,'
they tell us. `We shouldn't offend anyone,' they tell us. `We should be
inclusive. We've got the barbarians from the north with their tree
decorations and their fire rituals, and the weirdos from Gaul cutting
mistletoe with a golden sickle, and the Mytherists(ph), the
Zoroastrians, the Isis cults and, of course, those characters That hang
out in the catacombs.' `Hail, winter,' we're supposed to say. I ask you,
what next? We lose the feast? We stop the solstice parties? No more
honoring Ops, goddess of abundance?
I was buying some candles and greenery down by the Forum the other day
and there's old Macrobius with some Visigoth chick, and she goes, `Good
yule.' So I go, `Hey, in this country, we say, "Yo, Saturnalia." Maybe
you should go back from where you came from.' Then Macrobias goes, `She
can't; she's a slave.' Whatever. At this time of year, the Visigoths
sacrifice a pig and burn a special log which they then dance around
instead of acting like normal people and going to the temple of Saturn.
I swear, I was at this party over at Septima Commodia's house the other
day--she always has a Saturnalia party--anyway, she decorated the place
with prickly green leaves. `It's holly,' she said, `the latest fashion
from Britannia. They all do it over in Londinium.'
It gets worse. She had this statue of some goddess from Ultima Thule or
somewhere--name of Frigga--sitting right there on the dining room
mensal. I mean, this is darn near blasphemous. I'd be scared of what the
Lares and Penates would do if I put that thing in my house. But Septima
Commidia just said, `Oh, get over it. We're cosmopolitan around here.'
Cosmopolitan; that's what they call it. Well, by Jupiter, I live in
Latium, I'm a Roman and this empire was founded on the principle that
the gods, our gods, must be honored at the appropriate time and in the
appropriate way. None of this foreign heretical nonsense or these
strange customs from Germania or Hibernia or Palestine. I say, `Yo,
Saturnalia,' and if you don't like it, you can leave.