April fools

2025 has been a barrage of April Fool's Days with absolutely no let up. If you've ever spent a day rolling around in the roiling waves of pounding surf - it's that sensation held in your blood and body - long after, as you drift off in the safety of dreamtime. 

In a tropical ocean the water is body temperature warm - you can stay in it for hours quite enjoyably. Cocooned in the soothing saline broth and froth - as the sun bakes overhead and water washes away all soreness. Bobbing on the tide as bubbles prickle and pop all around. 

Dulling sounds, lulling senses, floating thoughts, sloshing time. Catastrophe and chaos pushed off and pended. 

I can pretend Trump has reached the apex of his imperialist fever dream. I can ignore Elon Musk and his sad man, bad boy gestapo blundering. I can imagine an ideal life unmarred by a slavishly compliant GOP monkeys and out of touch geriatric Dem donkeys. 

I can pretend it's not election season where I live. I can ignore loyalists and their pathetic rallies. I can imagine our mother restored to her healthiest prime and not comatose in bed for the past agonizing months. 

Some people think the idea of April Fools’ Day goes back to classical Roman times, when a joyful festival called Hilaria - originally probably an equinox celebration, came to be celebrated on March 25. 

In Roman terms, March 25 was called the eighth of the Calends of April - April 1, the Calends of April. There’s no hard evidence to connect Hilaria with April Fools’ Day though this is just one of many guesses advanced by curious people.

Another common theory placing the origin of April Fools’ Day in the Roman Empire - dates it to the reign of Emperor Constantine. According to this story, a group of fools or jesters convinced Constantine to make one of them king for a day. 

Constantine obliged, and one of the jesters, named Kugel, was appointed to the position. He decreed that it would be a day of jollity - creating what came to be called April Fools’ Day. The only problem with that story is that it’s a hoax. 

A prank, pulled by Boston University professor Joseph Boskin on Associated Press reporter Fred Bayles in 1983. 2025 feels like Clockwork Orange level of pranksters have been unleashed into a clueless world of hapless victims. 

Boom! Bang! Bizarro! 

The novel is deals with the conflict between the individual and the state. More specifically, the punishment of young criminals, and the possibility or otherwise of redemption. 

The word smithing originality of the book, and the moral questions it raises, are as relevant now as they ever were. 

This fiction centers on a gang with a tribal fashion sense and a predilection for motiveless violence. Sound familiar? Too close to current reality - unfortunately. 

This violence, so brutally rendered in the novel, could have been inspired by any number of incidents from our own experiences in today's shit show of a world.