Best Summer Holiday?

Lowbrow Answer: Independence Day (July 4th)
How do we celebrate the birth of our nation? By blowing shit up. Typical, America. It's so ironically appropriate that it's not even funny. Maybe we should add slave-taking, Indian-killing, and witch-burning to the festivities. Happy birthday, USA!

And of course, what do we eat on the 4th of July? Hot dogs, hamburgers, french fries, and all manner of gluttonous semi-food. I feel like somebody proposed this holiday a long time ago as a joke, but everybody thought he was being serious and went ahead with it. Kind of like how Ugg boots were invented.


Middlebrow Answer: Walpurgis Night (April 30 / May 1)
No big deal, but this holiday is named after Saint Walpurga, who is credited with being the first female author in both England and Germany. Like, the first female author ever. The holiday itself is celebrated with bonfires, drinking, and all sorts of strange ceremonies like the capping of Havis Amanda in Finland or the rafting expedition in Fyrisån. I think American holidays need more rafting. Come to think of it, I think every event needs more rafting. Funerals would be waaaay more fun.

Walpurgis Night is only really heavilly celebrated in Sweden, Finland, Estonia, and Germany. I can think of two others things that only happen in those four countries:
1. The driving of Citroen cars.
2. The wearing of Hummel sports clothing.

Sorry, Walpurgis Night, but you aren't in very highbrow company with those two.


Highbrow Answer: Buhe (August 19th)
In Ethiopia, the boys of the village go from house to house, singing an improvised song to get pennies from their neighbors. Any holiday where music is actually part of the ceremony itself is highbrow. And I don't mean like, Christmas songs. I mean like, actual traditional music that must be sung as part of the celebration itself. Parry Cuomo and "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" can teabag me.

The best thing about this holiday is if the boys' songs are bad or contain poor rhymes, they don't get any money! High. Brow. Imagine if we held our kids to the same standards. If they had to perform a Mozart Aria at every house on Halloween and they didn't get any candy if they went flat. Or if they didn't get any presents on Christmas if their letters to Santa contained grammatical errors. Then maybe we'd be raising intelligent youth in this country instead of the video-game playing butterball zombies we have now.