Don’t get me wrong. No one loves black and white together more than I; in fact, dozens of designers have done amazing interpretations of the buckle shoe already. And Black Friday—please. I know it’s a huge day for my industry and has helped pay my bills by bolstering my clients’ businesses. I have nothing against holidays or celebrating; I just don’t know why we’d want to celebrate a holiday with no meaning that makes us strung out, fat, and broke.
And I resent the fact that, when I go to my local farmer’s market on weekends in November, I have to see a poor turkey in a cage under a sign that says, “Order Here,” and be forced to explain to my daughter that this beautiful creature, which Benjamin Franklin wanted to name our national bird, is about to be slaughtered and eaten. Humans have celebrated the solstice and the changing of the seasons for thousands of years. Why can’t we just say we’re taking a time-out for four days to each celebrate what we want, with a smile on our face and a prayer and a song in our heart?
When I first found out the truth about Thanksgiving, I fasted on that day, refusing to justify this fake, violent holiday with my participation. After a few years, I decided it would be more productive to make it into my own holiday. So I started throwing a “harvest dinner,” inviting a handful of friends and sometimes employees to my apartment, where we’d cook root vegetables and celebrate the harvest, the changing of the seasons, and everything in our lives we have to be grateful for. We don’t need a fake historical event to justify this—and I can assure you we are not missing out on anything.
When you really start to look at our modern holidays, you’ll see they have almost nothing to do with history, religion, or tradition and everything to do with capitalism—which wants to keep us acting “normal,” or distracted from what’s real and numbly consuming as much stuff as possible. Until the 1980s, most stores were closed on holidays like Presidents’ Day. But these holidays have become huge boons to retail; stores stay open to capitalize on the fact that the government has given us all a mandatory day off when we’re free to shop! Presidents’ Day now is best known not for presidents, but for car discounts. Yes, it has become one of the biggest car-buying days of the year! Valentine’s Day, meanwhile, is a huge day for the chocolate, flower-delivery, and restaurant businesses. I mean, entire industries revolve around these supposedly restful “holidays.”
Meanwhile, Anna Jarvis, the West Virginian who invented Mother’s Day and got President Woodrow Wilson to approve it in 1914, was arrested later in her life for protesting the commercialization of this holiday she helped create! Yes, she gets one holiday celebrating women on our whole fucking calendar, only to be disgusted when it’s taken over by capitalism. Jarvis even opposed selling flowers and greeting cards, calling them “a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write.”
Please, will you join me in putting these holidays out of business?
Let’s celebrate the things we want to celebrate by creating our own personal holidays and traditions, making them restful, meaningful, and yes, even spiritual.
And let’s stop shopping on days when the government and capitalism tell us to and instead shop when everything’s on sale!
Chapter Four
Awakening Universal Motherhood:
My Three-Way with Wonder Woman, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Amma
I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.
Do what you feel in your heart to be right—for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Part I: Ultimately, There’s No Such Thing as Coincidence or Bad Publicity
One day last summer, I received a phone call from the New York Post informing me that DC Comics had created a new look for Wonder Woman and asking for my opinion. What? I thought. Why would they change her look? She looks amazing! I happen to think Wonder Woman’s look is one of the few things in the world that shouldn’t change. After all, there’s really nothing like a hot chick in star-spangled briefs, knee-high boots, arm cuffs, and a red and gold corset with a lasso and supernatural powers. Who doesn’t love that?
I hadn’t seen the new look yet, so I pulled it up on the Internet. I was disappointed, to say the least. This was surely a fashion “don’t.” As in, don’t take a really hot superhero known for saving lives in a Thierry Mugler-esque getup and reduce her to jeggings and a cropped bolero. It was pathetic! Besides, we were in the middle of a recession. How had no one thought to call some American designers to ask them to redesign her look? That would have been a good PR strategy! I told the Post exactly what I thought, and then later I vlogged about it on “Wake Up and Get Real,” the internet talk show I do with my best friend Justine Bateman. Wanting my comments to be alliterative, I said that Wonder Woman had gone “from Paris to Poughkeepsie.” (I consider myself something of an aficionado of mall looks in Pough-keepsie, since I spend many a Sunday strolling the Poughkeepsie Galleria near my weekend home.)
It wasn’t long after the New York Post piece and my vlog appeared that I started receiving calls from a guy named John W. Barry, a reporter for the Poughkeepsie Journal. At first I didn’t call him back. I didn’t have to be psychic to figure out he was probably calling with
