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Allen Salkin, author of the holiday cult book “Festivus,” has struck a deep chord with his take on this unconventional holiday first nationally promoted on “Seinfeld.” |
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Bring out the aluminum pole, it’s time for Festivus
New book outlines the how-to for proper Festivus celebrations
By Sue Harrison
Banner Staff
Worried about inclusion, exclusion, politically correct ways to make this holiday season really rock? Look no further than the new book by Allen Salkin, “Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us” (Warner Books). Sure it started as a six-minute bit on a Seinfeld show but Salkin says it resonates much broader than that.
“The great American holidays are Halloween, Thanksgiving, the Academy Awards and Super Bowl,” Salkin says by phone from his home in New York. “These are the holidays people really want to take part in and be able to eat the food they really want to eat.” To those he adds Festivus, with its oddly compelling traditions and peculiar food.
The first time most folks heard of Festivus was during a Seinfeld episode on Dec. 18, 1997, where Frank Costanza (Jerry Stiller) revealed the true holiday spirit by rejecting forced joviality and overdone decorations and gifts. No, the true spirit is best expressed with an unadorned aluminum pole in lieu of a fancy tree, a serious “Airing of Grievances” (AOG) and the necessary “Feats of Strength” in which the head of the household is wrestled and pinned to the ground. Naturally the holiday has expanded with ever-increasing numbers of fun things to do with the pole after downing a few Festivus Shooters or cups of Don’t Make Me Punch You Punch. And the all-important food element has been fleshed out, so to speak, with delicious Festivus recipes like Shrimp Impaled on Mini Festivus Poles, Feats of Strength Fondue with Festivus Beer or the yum-yum hit, Ham with Junior Mints and Snapple Glaze.
The official Festivus date is Dec. 23, but in honor of the contrarian nature of the holiday, just about any date, or several, will do.
Salkin says he accidentally hit on the book idea when a friend in Ohio told him about an upcoming Festivus party.
“I couldn’t believe people actually had them,” he says. “Then I woke up in the middle of the night and realized, this is a story.”
He wrote about the phenomenon for The New York Times style section last December and was surprised that it quickly turned into one of the most frequently e-mailed stories from the section.
“I knew I had discovered a sub cult that no one had written about,” he says. “It was like discovering punk rock in 1975 or Mohawk [haircuts] and no one had written about them yet.”
He put out a quick book proposal which got snapped up by Warner, hired himself a research assistant and dug into the history and permutations of the Seinfeld-spawned celebration. He was amazed to discover that people all over the country were having Festivus parties and that almost all of them thought they were the only ones. In truth, each party was a little different and he set out to find out just what was going on out there.
“We accumulated every reference that we could find,” he says. “It was more like being an ethnographer. This is journalism, not me drinking a lot of beer and waxing poetic about my favorite show.”
Salkin comes from a journalism background and even spent three months in Provincetown in 1995 working for The Provincetown Advocate. Since then he’s worked at the New York Post and for The New York Times as well as doing freelance work.
Some readers tell him it’s the funniest book they’ve ever read, and others are disappointed because they think it’s going to be like finding an un-aired episode of Seinfeld, which it’s not. In terms of reviews, Salkin is raking in the good stuff. The book title is high on the Amazon sales list and he’s doing three interviews a day on television and radio.
When asked if he was a Seinfeld fanatic, he says not really. “But like any narcissistic, Jewish New Yorker, I like the show.”
As for Festivus, he says he now realizes he has been celebrating his own version for years.
“I don’t go to people’s houses and tell them their ugly trees are beautiful and I am always airing grievances,” he says. “I tell the truth all day (as a journalist) and lift a bunch of weights (at the gym) to get rid of the tension that accumulates.”
That certainly sounds like Festivus, although the holiday has been shifting around in its expressions. Salkin outlines many of them in the book, from the mount-or-don’t-mount question of displaying the Festivus pole to the many possible, if appalling drinks that can be prepared. Not to be forgotten are the songs sung to borrowed tunes and washer pitching tournaments, called “redneck horseshoes” in Salvin’s book.
The airing of grievances is a major component comprised of lashing out at friends and loved ones about the various ways they disappoint. And the feats of strength are needed to clear the air after the venom of the AOG. But, Salkin says, there are a lot of new and creative ways to display those feats.
“I’m a believer in feats of strength,” he says. “But wrestling is a good way to get hurt or break something valuable. There is a woman in Kansas City who has created a thumb wrestling contest complete with a little wrestling ring you stick your thumbs into and thumb wrestling costumes. Or, you can see how long you can hold your breath under ice water or Hula Hoop while smoking.”
Salkin even travels this time of year with his Festivus pole in hand and says he gets people coming up to him on the subway in New York, where people do not usually talk to one another, and asking, “Is that a Festivus pole?”
Not really such unusual behavior, he says. “Nobody doesn’t like Festivus.”
artseditor@provincetownbanner.com
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In the Arts
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Dec 15th, 2005