St. Patrick's Day Sux

I've really grown to dislike Saint Patrick's Day. In opposition I want to adopt St. Joseph's Day. Which is celebrated the day after Saint Patty's in the city of Valencia. St. Joseph's day involves creating large displays similar to one would consider a parade float but made out of plaster and paper mache with a wood supports inside. The main point of these displays is to depict satires of social trends, political current events, and moral attitudes. Of course by depicting them satirically the creators wish to initiate change. At midnight on March 18th these are set aflame. From I'm told it's quite a sight to see these 3 story monuments blazing in the streets next buildings of the same height.

These displays are called fallas. It has become a tradition that the fallas be designed vertically. (They burn better that way.) A particular satirical theme is picked for the falla. Typically a mythological character is picked to be on top of the falla. This is an allegorical figure to the theme. The base is filled with scenes depicting off shoots of the main theme. The scene usually contains a caption that has a bit literary wit that would be rather uncommon in anything American these days. Wit that reflects the phraseology based in classic literature or scripture. The fallas look amazing. They look like gorgeous nightmares come to life. Perhaps similar to what you might see at Disneyland but twisted and filled with innuendo.

This is first I've heard of this holiday. It's a rather large holiday so perhaps you've heard of it. There are a lot more types of events surrounding the celebration but the fallas are what I found most interesting. It's comparable of course to the Burning Man festival. The 130 plus tradition makes it much more fascinating though. They both carry the concept of creating an object that personifies frustration and burning it down to release stress. The ideals behind the fallas seem like they were engrained due to necessity where as the Burning Man these ideals were superimposed.

My professor in my Spanish class brought in a slide of his multiple trips to the festival and was gushing with information about it. He had gorgeous photos of it and like most of his classes he was rather animated.

Lately, I've been pondering in minoring in the Spanish language.

Historia De Las Fallas
Fotos De Las Fallas