MOTUS A.D.: Monday the Day After Groundhog Day: We Do it All Over Again

Monday, February 3, 2014

Monday the Day After Groundhog Day: We Do it All Over Again

Since I, like everyone else, was distracted by the Super Bowl yesterday (sorry about that, Peytonistas, maybe next year) I was unable to provide my usual Groundhog Day coverage. Plus, I forgot all about it until Mayor De Blasio, decked out in his industrial strength anti-wildlife gloves, dropped his groundhog – causing it to curse New York with 6 more weeks of winter and 4 more years of De Blasio. Also, I understand “Staten Island Chuck” will be filing a claim against the city for brain damage cause by the ensuing concussion.

Some news reports indicated Staten Island Chuck was not “dropped” butt rather “bolted.”

So given the conflicting priorities and complications yesterday, I’m celebrating Groundhog Day today: just like in the movie! As such, I am continuing my custom of reprising previous Groundhog Day posts, because really, don’t you feel like we’ve been trapped in some type of a time warp for the past 6 years anyway? So we pick up with last year’s post, and move backward in time through the seemingly interminable years…

February 2, 2013, The first official MOTUS Groundhog Day Redux:

Ever since the release of the seminal Groundhog Day movie, February 2 has become synonymous with a type of recurring déjà vu. The movie touches on Camus' Myth of Sisyphus, veers into Nietzsche's “eternal recurrence of the same” and even touches on the possibility of man becoming a god-like Superman. Boy, does this have “BHO’s” fingerprints all over it or what?

So I dedicate this Groundhog Day redux to our Glorious (and possibly god-like) Leader and Shadow-Master: without his most transparent administration ever we would not be able to see through the “fog of government.” Won’t you please join me in enjoying, again, some previous Groundhog Day celebrations:

And on Groundhog Day, 2012, we commemorated some of Lady M’s attempts to see her own shadow in Two Hogs, Two Shadows:

Allow me to apologize before I begin. We have another historical first to rack up so it’s my dutiful responsibility to report: Yesterday marked the first time ever that a FLOTUS “dropped to give us 25” in a celebrity contest on national daytime television:

Although this was not, technically, the first time Lady M has done pushups on television. That international milestone was reached last June when we were in Africa and Lady M challenged Archbishop Tutu to match her awesomely toned guns in a few on-stage pushups.

She whipped his butt too, so let’s not be making this into a racial thing.

And when all is said and done, let me be perfectly clear: this was just an exhibition, not a competition. (Read more)

Back in 2011 Groundhog Day coincided with the “Arab Spring” uprising during which the Egyptians “unfriended” President Mubarak. It was a bad Groundhog Day for me:

“I had a restless night, and every time I woke the television was playing the same thing, over and over again. I thought I was having the vapors until I realized that little Mo had tuned the TeeVee to a movie channel that was having a “Ground Hog Day” marathon. What a relief! We’ve got enough déjà vu going on around here with that whole Egyptian mess.”

Unrelated to the overthrow of our friend in Egypt, 2011’s GHD post also covered an embarrassing incident involving ValJar, in which she mistook an General for a waiter (an honest mistake at a black tie dinner):

“You know the old saying ‘To a hammer, every problem looks like a nail?’ Well, it looks like it has a corollary: ‘To an imperialist, every uniform looks like a waiter.’”

Ok, Ok, it’s true. Val did ask a decorated US General to fetch her a glass of wine at a black tie dinner. Butt for goodness sake let’s take all of the circumstances into consideration before we jump to conclusions. For starters, the affair was held at the Alfalfa Club. The Alfalfa Club!? Isn’t that just a little racist? (read more)

And since Groundhog Day is really more about shadows than (the Arab) Spring, I thought you might enjoy this Groundhog Day-esque ode to Big Guy’s shadow, from the occasion of his 2010 Great Asian trip.

“Seriously, by the time we got to Japan, we were just a shadow of our former self.”

My Shadow

by Robert Lewis Stevenson

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;

I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an errant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

BO introduces his shadow, who will be reading a speech with TOTUS

Damn! Stop bugging me. Go Away!

Does this Shadow make my ears look big? (Read more)