Thankful For Thanksgiving

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Even though it’s usually associated with the joy of being with family or friends, Thanksgiving, it seems, has been slipping out of vogue. Of course, Christmas décor has been on display since a couple of weeks before Halloween. This year, as I browsed the web, I saw hardly anything about the holiday itself — and instead, mainly saw stuff about Black Friday.

But I was more excited about the upcoming Die Antwoord show, which takes place at The Republik Dec. 3. The band describes its sound as “rap-rave” and puts on an incredible show — and has been one of the more interesting acts of the past few years. (If you haven’t seen the movie Chappie, they were cast as lead characters who take in a robot and teach him how to be a gangster.)

And from what I know about fans of the band, they’re really big fans. I think the crowd is going to be abnormally hyped that night because there’s a sort of nerd-core enthusiasm amongst Die Antwoord fans. Even though their musical content is pretty hardcore — and their videos are notorious for more of the same — something about the high-speed of Ninja’s flow and the high pitch of Yolandi’s vocals mixed with their accents and super fast beats makes their music feel like it belongs in a fantasy video game world. They definitely come off as something that’s out of this world, almost like they’re from a parallel dimension coming to bless us mere mortals with some next level hardcore of which we’re not worthy.

I had bought my ticket in the hopes that I’d be able to go, but I’ll have to give it away. I’m right in the middle of a big exam cram jam, so I won’t be doing much for the next couple of weeks except studying.

I guess that it means opting out of Black Friday, too. There are a couple of things on my Black Friday/Cyber Monday wish list, but I’m sticking to those few potential purchases to avoid ending up with some crap that I really didn’t need, like a shave-ice maker that won’t fit anywhere in my apartment. My philosophy is if I didn’t feel like I needed it before it was cheap, I’m not gonna grab it now.

And although it seems like Thanksgiving is taking a backseat lately, I don’t really mind, because it’s still big in my family. And I really appreciate all the invites to get-togethers for people who don’t have family out here. I think that it’s pretty awesome that even though the holiday is taking a huge hit from mainstream attention year after year, the core of what it’s about has still maintained a big presence for so many.

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