FEAST OF FOOLS
Nobody knows when April Fools’ Day started, but sure as shooting, on April 1st, someone is going to tell you your zipper is open or they just heard your number called on television and you won the lottery. Some say April Fools’ Day goes back to a Roman festival called Hilaria, celebrated on March 25, the seventh day before the Calends (first day of the month) of April, in honor of Cybele, the mother of the gods. Others have suggested the holiday has roots in Druidic rites in Britain or the medieval celebration of the Feast of Fools.
But the holiday most likely goes back to the late Middle Ages when France switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, which meant New Year’s Day was celebrated on January 1, and no longer on March 25 through April 1. Those who were slow to catch on became the butt of jokes and pranks, one of which was sticking paper fish on the backs of the unsuspecting. In fact, in France, April 1 is still called “Poisson d’Avril,” and if you don’t watch out, you may find yourself strolling down the Champs-Élysées with one of those little pieces of paper on your back.
This year, Birdland celebrated April Fools’ Day on April 2 (were they trying to fool us?), when singer/songwriters Christine Lavin and Julie Gold and special guests David Buskin, Robin Batteau and John Forster shared some very funny original songs and parodies.
John Forster, David Buskin, Robin Batteau, Christine Lavin, and Julie Gold
The show began with Buskin singing an a cappella, hand-clapping version of “A Folksinger Earns Every Dime,” with Batteau, Forster, Gold and Lavin. In this song he tells us, Well you’re out on the road and the living is hell / You might even get stuck in some two-star hotel.
Those not into the plight of folksingers might have preferred Forster’s “Nothing Ventured, Nothing Lost,” an ode to songs offering unsolicited advice: The crop you never planted cannot be killed by frost / Nothing ventured, nothing lost. Or they might have been greatly amused by his rendition of a song titled “Freudenschade.” This is a word Forster made up. It means the pain you get from the pleasure of others, the opposite of “Schadenfreude,” which is pleasure derived from another’s misfortune.
“Drum School Dropout,” which featured Lavin on the Irish bodhran, was notable for how well she played the drum badly and the clever lyrics about how at the “tender age of 71” she decided to “get in touch with her Gaelic parts.” Buskin’s “Old” parodied well-known songs with lyrics like Mrs. Brown you have to hold your water. “Sensitive New Age Guys” was about modern men trying to change their image, and “Thinkin’ with the Little Head” was about, well, you know what.
Let the French have their fish. We have Lavin, Gold, Buskin, Batteau and Forster.
photo by Vicky Blumenthal Forster
April Fools
Birdland, 315 West 44 Street
played on Tuesday, April 2 at 5:30
