It's an Absurd Thing to Say

On November 21st. our 49th state, Alaska, will celebrate Alascattalo Day.  This holiday was started over 25 years ago by a commercial writer in Alaska named Steven C. Levi with a parade, deemed as the "longest-running shortest parade in American history."  It starts at precisely 3 minutes past noon with the participants wearing disguises, goes down an alley behind Club Paris that measures a block, and lasts for about 4 minutes.  There is a prize for the smallest and ugliest float...it must be both to qualify.  The celebration was named after a fictitious animal called the Alascattalo, a mix between a moose and a walrus.  It looks like a moose with shorter, stouter legs and with walrus tusks.  According to history, during the Alaskan Gold Rush the miners bred the mythical creature in keeping with Alaskan humor.  It was meant to be a funny response to the stupid questions tourists would ask. 

Alaskans are superb at "absurding," a technique similar to the tall tale, but more absurd!  An example given to a tourist if he was to ask where he or she might find a penguin nest...penguins don't exist in the Arctic, they live in the Antarctic....the absurding Alaskan could answer, "It's been a lean year for penguins because the alligators keep forcing them out of the beaver lodges.  That's where they spend the summer, you know, in beaver lodges".

On April 2, 1926, a stony asteroid was discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth at the Heidel Observatory.  2500 Alascattalo is an asteroid that orbits the sun mainly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and not near earth.  it is also known as a minor planet, now known as Dwarf planet.  The name is allocated to it by the Minor Plant Center (MPC), part of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, with some names after the discoverer or named after mythological characters.  The official naming citation, 2500 Alascattalo, was published on November 21, 1991.

We have had the good fortune of acquiring Steven C. Levi's book, "Alascattalo Tales:  A Treasury of Alaskan Humor" and have been chuckling ever since!  We would like to share some "funnies" with you found in the "Strange but true" section and "To Lie Like an Alaskan".

One winter during the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous, a bearded Alaskan was pawing through a pile of imported kangaroo pelts on the floor of a fur shop.  Looking for just the right color combination to make himself a floppy winter hat, he was dividing the pelts into piles of possibilities. Just as he was finishing, a tourist, fresh from the thrill of her first open-air fur auction, stepped into the shop and spotted this bearded character, clearly one of those grizzled sourdoughs (an old timer, traditionally someone who had been in Alaska from freeze up to break up) of which she had read so much, with piles of pelts on the floor. 

Pulling out her camera and adjusting the focus, she asked what kind of pelts he was handling.  "Kangaroo," he said without looking up.  "Oh", she replied. "Are they Alaskan?"  An evil gleam flashed in his eye for a split second.  "Yeah," he grumbled without looking up, "from up 'round Bethel."  And right now, somewhere in upstate New York, there is a woman swearing to her friends that there really are kangaroos in Alaska.

One day in Anchorage, a defense lawyer appeared before a judge with no tie. The judge, no friend of the defense attorney, announced that he would fine any attorney in his court without a tie $100.  Thinking quickly, the defense attorney took off a shoelace and wrapped it around his neck.  Not to be deterred, the judge then announced he would fine any attorney in court without shoelaces $100.

And finally, in 1990, The Talkeetna Moose Dropping Festival received an outraged call from an animal rights group in the Lower 48 demanding to know how high the moose was when it was dropped.  "About 300 feet," replied an absurding Alaskan at Festival Headquarters, "but we drop them on cement."

We leave you with two of our images that you can use to imagine an Alascattalo.  The moose was taken in the Grand Teton National Park at Jenny Lake, Wyoming, and the Walrus was captured in the Svalbard Archipelago 600 miles south of the North Pole and 600 miles north of Norway.

TOP IMAGE: AFTERNOON STROLL
BOTTOM IMAGE: TOOTHWALKER

These images are available in tabletop to wall size, triple matted, and with or without a frame.  The matted versions are yours at a 10% discount and the framed matted versions in sizes 11x14 and larger can be yours at a 15% discount.

Visit our website, www.throughthelensoflee-margaret.com for available sizes and prices.

Stop by and see us on Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 12 noon and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The gallery is open for arranged Saturday appointments.  Call us at 904-387-8710 to schedule your special visit.  Come see us and order now.

          Alaskan business card:  The act of making an absolute fool of yourself on an airplane or in some other public place and handing out someone else's business card.                 

Unusual or Humorous Alaskan Phrases from Steven C. Levi's book "Alascattalo Tales"