Assistant Editor Maggie Su: The excerpts from Marie Kare’s series How to Celebrate National Holidays: Instructions for Enjoying Pseudoholidays featured in CR Issue 15.1 offer absurd reimaginings of commercialized celebrations such as “National Pen Pal Day,” “National Gingerbread Day,” “National Higher Education Day,” “National Best Friends Day,” and “National Handshake Day.”
Using imperatives in each of these microfictions, Kare doesn’t suggest—she commands her reader on how to observe each pseudoholiday, humorously pushing each idea to its furthest logical extreme. Kare forces the reader to interrogate what we have previously taken for granted. What does it mean to have a pen pal, or to make men out of gingerbread? Why is it significant to go to college, to have a best friend, or, even more simply, to shake someone’s hand?
In “National Pen Pal Day,” Kare writes, “Think back to when you were a kid and you’d give the classroom globe a spin, stop it with your fingertip, and vow to move to whatever location you landed on.” Kare explains that when a kid’s finger hit the ocean twice, they were fated to die alone at sea. She then seamlessly transitions back to the present moment, writing, “Today, do that, but with people.” In this way, Kare positions “National Pen Pal Day” as a gimmick, a game, and she applies this childlike logic to the real-world process of cultivating friendships. She pokes fun at the randomness of connection, writing, “Pull out your phone, give your contact list a whirl, and drop your thumb on a random entry.” In this move, Kare points out that the relationships we deem so significant may be products of chance. She concludes, “If your first contact does not respond, try another. If neither contact responds, die alone at sea.”
In true postmodern fashion, each of Kare’s short fictions deconstruct the rules laid out in their titles. Yet Kare’s work does more than reveal the false commercialism of pseudoholidays. Her writing also amplifies fundamental personal and political dilemmas and, through a darkly funny lens, she exposes the live wires behind the human condition.
