TRIPFEST, All Over Again

April Foolz

see also: Feast of Fools-> http://fox-actors.blogspot.com/2011/12/feast-of-fools.html

April Fool's Day. Where's it's origin? It's hard to trace on definitive point.  In Medieval Europe, the New Year was typically celebrated close to the Vernal Equinox (aka the beginning of Spring). It seems to actually make more sense that a season with a renewal of life and new things coming about would be a good time for New Year's (as opposed to a time getting into the dead and quiet of Winter where things are more subdued and still).  The Romans had a festival around the Spring New Year's called Hilaria.

Sounds like the word hilarious, and the roots are the same. Mid March the fest would start out with gloomy stuff like scourging, blood, sacrifice, and mourning. As the weather warmed up and Spring got closer people's moods lifted and they decided to rejoice and revel in the great rebirth and would worship the Earth Mother. Many cultures around the world would have 'fool fests' or times to really abandon traditional sternness are just let loose you know? Hilaria was one such as these. Even before the Romans, the ancient Persians would celebrate their New Year around April 1st or 2nd and would pull all manner of merriment and pranks. This could indeed be the oldest traceable 'origin' of April Fools Day.
 

In the mid 1500's in France the Julian Calendar was ditched (think Julian as in Julius Caesar as in Roman).. and the Gregorian Calendar was adopted. New Year's now became Jan 1st, as many Westerners know it today (it spread outward from France to all manner of places). Some people were kinda slow to receive the spread of the news and were still celebrating New Year's around the beginning of Spring or around April 1st. The Gregorian calendar snobs were like, "heh...jackasses!" and would pull tricks on them and send them on phony errands and the like. At least that is how it is theorized. And all the old traces of the ancient fool fests of the Romans and Persians and others still remained around that time.

In some parts of Europe today, like France or Italy, people will attach a paper fish to your back and shout "April fish!" in their native tongue. Silly eh? Well the fish is supposed to symbolize (among other things) one who is easily led on by 'bait' or easily fooled. So that makes sense. Even in Scotland jokes will be performed with the  buttocks as a focus. Think: kick me signs prolly began here. It's called 'Taily Day.' Ha. There are all sorts of interesting customs and variations worldwide.

Here's a list of a few neat pranks to try:
 ~Replace the sugar in the sugar bowl with salt
~Loosen the lid of a salt shaker or pepper shaker so it spills everywhere when used
~Change the clocks around, convince someone they are late for somewhere!
~Put a cup of water (soft plastic not heavy glass!) balanced on top of a door so it spills on someone's head when they move through it
~Superglue money to a public sidewalk and watch people try to pick it up
~Put just one cup of laundry detergent in a public fountain and watch the suds go everywhere
~Good ol' fashioned whoopee cushions or thumbtacks where people tend to sit
~Grease a door knob or latch so it's very hard to open!
~Prank call somebody
~Mix up fake poop in a bowl (use like ketchup, BBQ sauce, peanut butter etc) and put it in a clean pair of drawers and leave it on a door knob or bed or something
~Take all the right footed shoes away leaving only the left
~Cover something with plastic wrap, toilet paper, shaving cream, silly string etc
~Replace real fruit in a fruit bowl with plastic fruit
~Place rubber chickens, garden gnomes, plastic snakes etc in weird spots
~Pretend you got injured, have like a fake severed finger with fake blood and all that
~Put food color in milk or other things to make them funky colors
~Kinda mean, put ex-lax in someone's coffee
~Re-arrange furniture, TV sets, etc....even fasten something like a toaster to the wall!
~Cover someone's office cubicle with hundreds of paper cups full of something like Kool Aid, or cover with some other crazyass thing(s)
~Etc. Etc. Etc. The above ones listed are more generic and common pranks, it's strongly encouraged that the more imagination the better (I seem to lack a bit as of this moment, ha..)