St. Remedius Medical College: “For Whom the Owl Hoots”

In Dallas, the Superb Owl Is More Than One Day

(Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?)

Dallas, Texas has a very special and specific tradition: the ability to turn any ethnic or parochial holiday, no matter how obscure, into an excuse for a majority of its citizenry to drink themselves into comas. St. Patrick’s Day? Cinco de Mayo? Mardi Gras? Oktoberfest? Belo Glasnost? All are opportunities for equal-opportunity fratbros and other predators to pull out their well-worn wire-bound copies of 101 Mixed Drinks That Mask the Taste of Rohypnol, put on their favorite school mascot shifter attire, and attempt to beat the per-capita alcohol consumption of Appleton, Wisconsin. The one absolute is that they proudly know nothing about the holidays they appropriate: if it’s been excused as an opportunity to throw full beer cans at passing cars and crap in others’ front yards, it’s a good holiday. (For fun, ask that fiftysomething UT party animal taking the DART train to downtown to avoid the inevitable DUI tickets upon their return about the holiday in question: they might be surprised enough that Cinco de Mayo does not celebrate Mexico independence to drop the bar-provided sombrero but not enough to drop the bottle of tequila, but watch the expressions of horror from the green-saturated boozehound by noting their attire and commenting “I didn’t know you were Catholic.”

Likewise, most Dallasites have forgotten the purpose and meaning of Superb Owl, relegating the holiday to one Sunday night of consumption of cheap pilsner and cheaper cheese-like product while engaging in sports-sponsored xenophobia, and the subsequent Monday morning drive to work combining near-fatal hangovers with an absolute determination to watch videos of the previous night’s highlights while driving. After Monday, the festivities fade to empty rituals of tribal affiliations and self-identification of the worst possible drivers on the road, to be generally forgotten until autumn. But this is Superbowl, not Superb Owl. As with the other holidays, most Dallasites forgot the meaning and wonder that is Superb Owl, replaced the sacred statues and banners with numbered jerseys, consigned the rest of the holiday to yet another workweek, and blanked out everything that made Superb Owl a particularly sacred Dallas holiday save one. Well, nearly everyone. Until its disappearance, the students, faculty, and administration of St. Remedius Medical College proudly celebrated Superb Owl in the old ways.

Combining the best traditions of Caltech’s Ditch Day and Dallas’s own Ninja Box Office, St. Remedius Superb Owl always fell on the week before the second new moon of the Gregorian new year, coinciding with and complementing the Lunar New Year, the beginning of Lent, and the Harkun Festival of Flippant Fornication, starting with the traditional greeting of new students and staffers with holy water snowballs “to check for earwax vampires.” Then, depending upon department, dorm, or social affiliation, the festivities began, demonstrating affinities, gathered knowledge, and the opportunity for the maximum amount of mischief. Music majors competed in meteorological manipulation with guitars, drums, and bagpipes, with the loser getting washed out or blizzarded upon. Miniature and teacup hodag racing: “It’s Microzilla against King Cuddles, in a race for the ages!” Outdoor Student Union showings of the Irate Ian films, with audience participation encouraged. In the days when the heads of the Advanced Technologies and the Metaphysics departments were happily married, the live chess games between the departments using gelbots and homunculi were must-watch events, as were the dragon dressage demonstrations by the Veterinary Medicine majors and special playlists interspersed with dramatic readings of an impending invasion by private equity and commercial real estate drones from St. Remedius Radio. Everyone still worked, but the snow-day hijinx were perfect opportunities to relieve study stresses, even among St. Remedius’s artificial and temporally-displaced residents. Finally, as the moondial at the front gate showed the moon in its fullest shadow, everyone gathered in the Student Union to sing the song specially composed for that year’s Superb Owl, the dean took down the sacred Superb Owl statue from its plinth next to the union fountain, and Superb Owl was over for the year.

Superb Owl legend had it that with a sufficient amount of tomfoolery during the festival, echoes of the participants and the events would echo through time every year, and the last Superb Owl apparently left quite the ripple on the surrounding space-time. In that magical week, one can look across the empty vista where St. Remedius once stood and, with the right kind of eyes, see and hear the crowd raise their arms and yell “G’night, Andy!” and hear the response of “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. Questions, concerns, and disgust over generative AI? Check out Contact, Privacy Policy, and AI Policy. And feel free to visit the St. Remedius Medical College Redbubble shop for all of your Mandatory Parker needs.

Advanced Technologies Andy Kaufman Writhes in Hell Variety Hour Metaphysics moondial Music Department St. Remedius St. Remedius Radio Superb Owl