04.01.08
If it’s the 13th, it must be a Saturday
Isn’t the idea of a 13 month calendar sublime? The idea is that the year is divided into 13 months that are each 28 days long. That means that there are 364 calendar days, and a special “new years day” that is essentially a holiday and not considered an actual day of the week. In addition, every 4 years there’s a “leap day” that’s a similar special event.
The beauty of this system is that every month is exactly 4 weeks long. This means that every numbered day falls on the same weekday every month. The first of every month is a Sunday, the second a Monday, etc. It’s a very elegant system, and one that has been around for a long time. But for whatever reason, no one wants to change the existing one that, frankly, makes little to no sense. I mean sure, the whole birthday issue would be weird, but so what? Calendars have historically been shifted around before (the last change having been decreed in 1582), and people tend to get with the program eventually. I once talked to a crisis caller who insisted that we were all celebrating Jesus’ birthday 2 months too late (he reasoned that December as we know it is 2 months later than it was back when Jesus was born, thanks to the fact that the Gregorian calendar has 2 more months than the old Julian one). The guy was mentally unstable, had a plate in his head, and was generally unpleasant to talk to; and sure, his reasoning was flawed; but it does raise an interesting point. You see, the calendar is an arbitrary construct and the way that we keep track of days right now is a flawed system that was created over 400 years ago. As such, I don’t see what the big deal is with regard to changing the calendar system into something that is more functional and elegant.
All we’d have to do is agree on what the call the 13th month, and we’d be set.