You're free to like or dislike this calendar
Marc Emery wouldn't be my first choice as a "pin-up boy," but he has produced the best calendar for 1988.
Most of us working stiffs make it through the winter by stringing our sagging spirits from one holiday to the next. Even if it doesn't spell a day off, at least it's a bright spot on the office calendar.
Leap year makes this a particularly gloomy time, because instead of tacking the extra 24 hours onto the end of June where they belong, February is assigned 29 days, with the result that this month feels like an endurance test.
Most Canadian calendars do nothing to purge our reputation as a nation of nice, but dull, people who mark the usual Anglo-Saxon holidays, with the occasional Jewish religious date for good measure.
But there is hope and it comes from a very unlikely source - the Freedom Party.
This is a calendar which offers a few reasons to smile, although not always in the spots where London's Marc Emery intended us to be grinning when he researched, compiled and printed it.
What other calendar can you buy for $3.95 (plus $1 for postage) that offers a tasteful head-and-shoulders shot of writer-philosopher Ayn Rand as its centrefold? And who else but Emery would position British Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher as Miss April?
None of Canada's prime ministers appear to have impressed Emery, but United States president Thomas Jefferson shows up as Mr. September, and we have Aristotle holding down this month's covering shot.
The calendar is a plethora of Canadian and international historical tidbits marked in green and red; green to highlight what the Freedom Party views as grand days, and red signifying the dark days.
However, since the advancement of personal freedom is the intention of the Freedom Party, I'm sure Emery won't mind if we decide for ourselves which are the good and bad markers for 1988.
Some of the dates taken from Emery's calendar represent a good excuse to celebrate by eating something fattening. Others are a national shame and serve as reminders of the consequences of prejudice and intolerance. Whether he approves or not of the happenings on those dates, Emery keeps their significance alive.
If Emery's selections seem too dated, cartoonist Nicole Hollander, creator of that great cynic Sylvia, has come up with a calendar all her own.
She points out that International Women's Day is March 8. March 17 is already tagged for St. Patrick's Day, but Sylvia also predicts that on this date in 1988 a group of women will take over a boot factory and force designers to make boots big enough for the normal woman's calf. (We can only hope she's right.)
Singer Grace Jones will celebrate her 36th birthday on May 19, and Sylvia speculates that on June 7 some of the guests who have appeared on David Letterman's show will be awarded Purple Hearts in a secret ceremony.
The late Mae West was born on Aug. 17, a good reason for women to force themselves to shop for new bras.
Many of the events listed above may not change our lives, but they may help us make it through the winter and for that I thank Sylvia and Emery.
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last updated on April 28, 2002
