When 11 Days Disappeared by an Act of Parliament, and the 11th Anniversary of LibriVox
Above: a detail from “Continuity,” January 31, 2015
In 1750, the British Parliament threw out the Julian calendar. To align dates with the seasons of the year necessitated Draconian measures. The old-style year had always begun on March 25. Parliament mandated that, beginning in 1752, the new year would begin on January 1. Parliament also decreed that “the natural day next immediately following the second day of September (1752) shall be called, reckoned and accounted to be the fourteenth day of September, omitting for that time only the eleven intermediate nominal days.” In other words, those eleven days of September 1752 would never happen. Time would skip over them.
I am quite sure I would have been troubled by the year 1752. Those missing days would have stayed in my head. Selective amnesia was being called for, and I prefer clarity and continuity.
Which brings me, by a leap of time travel, to the 11th Anniversary of LibriVox. LibriVox is a quirky group of volunteers, and we have, since our 5th year (2010) annually celebrated our existence with an eclectic, multi-lingual, melange of prose, poetry, and song held together by some reference to the anniversary number. The first collection of recordings, which focused on the number “5” morphed into collections 6, 7, 8 , 9, 10, and — then came eleven. Here, time and enthusiasm seemed to stall. There were murmurs that it would be hard to find works that related to “11.” And then, the question was posed whether we really needed to celebrate “each and every anniversary” and “not just the big ones with fives or zeros.”
Just celebrate the big anniversaries? the ones with fives or zeros? My immediate response to this line of reasoning was “that’s youth speaking!” My husband and I had just celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in 2015, and I was exquisitely aware how precious each and every anniversary had become.
So, I volunteered to coordinate the 11th LibriVox anniversary collection. Then, of course, I had to search for readings that related to the number eleven, which is how I discovered the missing eleven days of 1752!
I discovered quite a few things about “11.”
- that 11 is a prime number
- that there is an 11 year sunspot cycle
- that there is an 11th chord in music
My contribution to the collection was an essentially silly “How to Furnish and Decorate an Eleven Hundred Dollar Cottage. (1890)” And it was pointed out to me that my bargain decorating scheme did not include indoor plumbing.
Our contributors came up with many imaginative eleven-themed selections, and we ended with a diverse group of readings, which included “Eleven Important Duck Foods,” and a short story by Kafka, “Elf Söhne,” read in German.
We also sang an original 11th Anniversary LibriVox song, written by Maria Kasper, which is included in the collection:
It’s a long road to meet our mission,
It’s a long road – but fun!
Every book in the public domain,
We will read them one by one.
It’s been eleven years now,
And still we’re far from done.
There are more books waiting on the doorstep –
We’ve barely begun!
Ancient classics, or modern sci-fi,
History’s rebels and kings,
Mighty novels and witty essays,
Tender poems that take wing.
Playing drama and melodrama,
We sometimes even sing.
Whether comic, tragic, or historic,
The book is the thing!
Some of us lend our voices,
While some lend our ears,
Some dig for hidden treasures
In archives far and near,
From all around the world, we
Have come together here,
How many books have we recorded?
Ten thousand by this year!
So let’s celebrate together,
Throw a party that rocks,
Sing “Happy Anniversary!”
Shout “Hurrah for LibriVox!”
It’s been eleven years now,
And still we’re far from done.
There are more books waiting on the doorstep –
We’ve barely begun!
(Finish with whoops, huzzahs, as the spirit moves you.)
