I know this blog is about and music and food. But this sounded interesting. I hope you would feel the same way as I do! and today is the "
DAY", "
FRIDAY THE 13th".
Friday the 13 is a superstition.
"Superstition is the religion of feeble minds".
Triskaidekaphobia - is a fear for the number 13. A specific fear of Friday the 13th is called
paraskevidekatriaphobia.
Folklorists think the dread goes back at least a few centuries, and may well trace its roots all the way to Biblical times, when the 13th guest at the Last Supper betrayed Jesus and caused his Crucifixion, which was held on a Friday.
Whatever the origin, by the late Middle Ages both Friday and the number 13 were considered bearers of misfortune. That potent combo, more than any specific association with the date, is what has deemed Friday the 13th unlucky.
Its origins can be traced to Norse mythology and a dinner party at Valhalla, home of the god Odin, where Odin and 11 of his closest god-friends were gathered one night to party. Everyone was having fun, but then Loki, the dastardly god of evil and turmoil, showed up uninvited, making it a crowd of 13. The beloved god Balder tried to boot Loki out of the house, the legend goes, and in the scuffle that followed he suffered a deathblow from a spear of mistletoe.
From that mythological start, the number 13 has plowed a path of devastation through history. There were 13 people at Christ's Last Supper, including the double-crossing Judas Iscariot.
The ill-fated Apollo 13 lunar mission left the launching pad at 13:13 hours and was aborted on April 13. Friday hasn't been much kinder to us.
Put it all together, and Friday the 13th spells trouble for triskaidekaphobics. It's a testament to the phobia's prevalence that Hollywood was able to parlay our fear into a hugely successful series of slasher movies starring a hockey-masked guy named Jason.
But triskaidekaphobia isn't an exclusively American affliction. Italians omit the number 13 from their national lottery.
There is a hush-hush organization in France whose exclusive purpose is to provide last-minute guests for dinner parties, so that no party host ever has to suffer the curse of entertaining 13 guests.
Hardcore triskaidekaphobics say that 13 has the power to affect not only their own personal lives, but global events as well.
There were thirteen circles of hell.
Judas is associated with the number 13.
Witches gather in a group of 13.
In the US and CANADA, many tall buildings do not have a floor numbered 13.
In Buffalo, the downtown city hall has no 13th floor. The number buttons in the elevators have 12, then P, then 14.
Many apartments and other buildings use M as the thirteenth floor (12, M, 14) because it is the thirteenth letter in the English Alphabet.
Kerala (India), The Kerala High Court Building has not assigned Number 13 to any of its courtrooms.
Some airport terminals do not have gates numbered 13
On some passenger aircraft such as Continental Airlines, Air NewZealand, Alitalia, and Meridiana, there is no seating row numbered 13.
The Military of United States traditionally skips 13 in its aircraft designation sequences, most visibly in the "F-for-Fighter" sequence, skipping from the YF-12 to the F-14 Tomcat.
Apollo13 was launched at 7:13 p.m. (19:13) UTC. The spacecraft was crippled by an explosion two days into its flight, on April 13,1970.
(Face the Truth: 13th is sitting right there behind the 12th, obviously -- it's just labeled as 14 or somthing else to hoodwink you into relaxing.)
So if you get fired from your job today, or smash up your car, you can blame it on Friday the 13th. Superstition, provides us with an excuse for explaining away our mistakes and disgraces. In other words, it's an easy way to rationalize the screw-ups for which we ourselves are ultimately responsible.
"Superstition is the weakness of the human mind; it is inherent in that mind; it has always been and always will be."
