Welcome To April, Which Doesn't Seem So Great Now, Does It?

Tracy died, you’ve surely heard, soon after a long-fought civil war. Happened this month. When it snows sometimes. Today is one of those times. Welcome to April.

Five months ago, I argued in these pages (in the comments section of these pages) in support of April’s “standard cheeriness.” I said, in fact, that this month might well be “one of the top three months.” Man, such sentiment seems awfully far away now, as we slog, slightly hung-over from Opening Day beer, through this bullshit half-snow dampening our day. You know what? I take it back: You suck, April!

What do we have to look forward to this month anyway? Taxes. And, of course, death. We can always count on death. There’s bound to be lots of it this month. There always is. Martin Luther King, Jr., Kurt Cobain, Cozy Powell, Saul Bellow, Linda McCartney, Christopher Robin Milne (appropriately enough), Left Eye, Ottawa Nation chief Pontiac, they all died this month. Jesus, too, if you believe in him.

Lots of births, too, of course. Because that keeps happening. (Until the planet reaches some kind of Children of Men state, at least, which seems likelier with each successive nuclear power-plant disaster.) Haley Joel Osment, Mandy Moore, God Shammgod and Posh Spice all celebrate birthdays this month. Hitler was born, famously, on the 20th. And now everything looks like him. Also, crazy people too often mark his birthday by doing something crazy and terrible. (This also happens the day before, the 19th, which is the anniversary of the ATF’s 1993 assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.) And people smoke lots of pot. And giant oil rigs blow up in the ocean and spill out oil that kills more whales and dolphins than we initially realize. And Joey Lawrence was born that day, too, in 1976. Ellen Barkin and the Budhha were born on other days in April.

Then there’s Good Friday, which, what’s so good about it? And Easter. Easter’s all right, I guess. Except for the stupid hats. But the lamb is delicious, with mint sauce, which always seems nice and Aprilly. And Passover seders, which can be enjoyable, as long as whoever’s leading them doesn’t insist on devoting a lot of time to every page in the Haggadah. Like, can we just get the afikomen already? I like singing “Dayenu,” though. And gefilte fish. I like ramps and shad, a lot, too, which come around in April. The food actually starts to get pretty delicious this month. Maybe that’s what I was thinking about when I said how great April was. The trees and plants grow their leaves back, and we can eat them or just admire their pretty green color. And I do love baseball and I’m happy it’s here. There’s something especially nice about the meaninglessness of April baseball games, too. So maybe it’s important to keep the whole April-showers-bring-May-flowers thing in mind today. It is best to try to achieve something like that which David Foster apparently hit on in his unfinished but now published novel, The Pale King, which Michiko Kakutani reviews in today’s Times.

“Happiness, Wallace suggests in a Kierkegaardian note at the end of this deeply sad, deeply philosophical book, is the ability to pay attention, to live in the present moment, to find “second-by-second joy + gratitude at the gift of being alive.”

Of course, David Foster Wallace was unable to do this himself. And if you suffer from allergies, April showers are really not worth it at all, and only contributing to further misery.

Oh, and you know who else died this month? Harvey Ball, the graphic designer who invented the world-famous “smiley face.” Ten years ago on the 12th. So, yeah.